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Scandal at America's top science fair

karlstack.com

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Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#71

Post by thriftwy »

The elephant in the room is that 17 years old should not be writing long scientific articles witha lot of supporting material. They are not paid for that and they are expected to study first.

We should definitely expect to see short, brilliant discoveries from teenagers when they notice a gem in a heap of data adults discarded.

But not that kind of bureaqucratic nightmare style scientific papers where the result is attained mostly through prespiration, not inspiration. 100% great for already learned and paid adults, being fraud or exploitation of adolescents.

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#72

Post by thriftwy »

pstrateman wrote: post #16

That's not only scientific fraud, it's real felony fraud. Maybe community service equivalent to 50,000.00 at federal minimum wage would sort him out.

The child is nothing to be blamed for, it is a 100% problem of the organizers.

For a 17 years old, even throwing together such work is already an worthwhile result. Teens is a golden age of compilation and remixing.

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#73

Post by anal_reactor »

tomcam wrote: post #54
uneekname wrote: post #10

I was a finalist at the 2017 ISEF and it was quite an experience. A lot of super smart kids there and we all had fun living it up in Los Angeles. There was a stark contrast between those of us who had designed our projects completely ourselves, and those who had significant mentors/lab affiliations. No hate to high schoolers getting valuable STEM experience at local universities, but Regeneron should do more to diffe…

> There was a stark contrast between those of us who had designed our projects completely ourselves, and those who had significant mentors/lab affiliations. Said with kindness and discretion. Parental "help", e.g. doing most or all of the work for a science fair entry, is an open secret among Asian communities. It has been for decades. I know firsthand that many Chinese-born parents don't even view it as at all wrong…

Unfortunately, many cultures don't see honesty as a value on its own. In Polish there's a word "frajer" which is an offensive term for someone who got cheated or didn't take advantage of a situation. The logic is that, if the society as a whole is dishonest, then it doesn't make sense to be a martyr recognized by no-one, and it's better to make sure you take care of yourself first.

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#74

Post by MerManMaid »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #60
zachlatta wrote: post #23

It's frustrating that we encourage fraudulent behavior for the college application process. I blame the judges, and college admissions departments. It orients the entire USA public education system around training sociopathic behavior into teenagers. We tell young people the best way to get ahead in life is through exaggerating. Then we train them to do it in their college essays and extracurriculars. Gross.

We need lottery based admissions. Let schools set a minimum test score, and anyone over that goes into lottery for admissions. Kill off essays, extra curriculars, club sports, summer programs, AP tests, Legacy admits, early applications, and let kids have some life again.

Love where your head is at, but assuming we're talking about the united states, we literally just have enough money and resources to subsidize every kid who wants to attend college if we really wanted to.

There are so many measurable long-term benefits to higher education both for the individual as well as the state that it's truly insane (to me any at least) with how unaccessible we've let it become.

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#76

Post by neilv »

vsnf wrote: post #70
tomcam wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a stark contrast between those of us who had designed our projects completely ourselves, and those who had significant mentors/lab affiliations. Said with kindness and discretion. Parental "help", e.g. doing most or all of the work for a science fair entry, is an open secret among Asian communities. It has been for decades. I know firsthand that many Chinese-born parents don't even view it as at all wrong…

> Parental "help", e.g. doing most or all of the work for a science fair entry, is an open secret among Asian communities. This has been a meme/running gag in countless sitcoms and Sunday morning newspaper comic strips for as long as I can remember. Not the Asian community part, just the 'parents actually doing the work' part. The joke is typically about overly competitive middle class suburban fathers juxtaposed aga…

The Cub Scout Pinewood Derby that I saw -- in which the kid is to carve a model car out of a block of wood at home, to race at an event -- they had wisely issued extra kits ahead of time, for those parents who would get a little too enthusiastic about helping Junior, and had separate races among the parents' cars.

Of course, the stakes were much smaller than an award or school admission that potentially makes/breaks your child's brilliant future career.

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#77

Post by nsajko »

anal_reactor wrote: post #73
tomcam wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a stark contrast between those of us who had designed our projects completely ourselves, and those who had significant mentors/lab affiliations. Said with kindness and discretion. Parental "help", e.g. doing most or all of the work for a science fair entry, is an open secret among Asian communities. It has been for decades. I know firsthand that many Chinese-born parents don't even view it as at all wrong…

Unfortunately, many cultures don't see honesty as a value on its own. In Polish there's a word "frajer" which is an offensive term for someone who got cheated or didn't take advantage of a situation. The logic is that, if the society as a whole is dishonest, then it doesn't make sense to be a martyr recognized by no-one, and it's better to make sure you take care of yourself first.

Fun fact: that's actually a Yiddish word: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/frajer

English translation: dope, sucker. As in there's a sucker born every minute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_...

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#78

Post by deely3 »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #9

Science fairs always have hints of fraud around them. Many of the children putting out incredibly advanced research, beyond their capacity, are benefiting from their parents’ expertise, or friends of family, or access to labs, and such. It’s not talked about much but has been an issue for decades. As a side note, the criticism around this incident seems to have some racial tones. It’s weird to see tweets referring to…

> Many of the children putting out incredibly advanced research, beyond their capacity, are benefiting from their parents’ expertise, or friends of family, or access to labs, and such.

Do we have a solution for this, and do we need a solution? Lets go nuts, lets go hyperbolic: should we ban kids from learning from their parents?

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#79

Post by [deleted] »

snickerbockers wrote: post #30

>Everyone makes mistakes — Lord knows I did plenty of stupid, immoral things when I was 17 — and there is always the opportunity for growth and redemption. when did the definition of 'mistake' change to encompass actions done on purpose? a mistake is when your data is invalid because you did the math wrong, not when all your data is simultaneously false and plagiarized. i don't mean to disagree with the notion that h…

[deleted]

Re: Scandal at America's top science fair

#80

Post by EvgeniyZh »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #60
zachlatta wrote: post #23

It's frustrating that we encourage fraudulent behavior for the college application process. I blame the judges, and college admissions departments. It orients the entire USA public education system around training sociopathic behavior into teenagers. We tell young people the best way to get ahead in life is through exaggerating. Then we train them to do it in their college essays and extracurriculars. Gross.

We need lottery based admissions. Let schools set a minimum test score, and anyone over that goes into lottery for admissions. Kill off essays, extra curriculars, club sports, summer programs, AP tests, Legacy admits, early applications, and let kids have some life again.

Just make tests hard enough so that you wouldn't need lottery
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