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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

#81

Post by greglindahl »

quotemstr wrote: post #69
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we need to distinguish here is what exactly we're talking about being "settled science". Is "human CO2 emissions are causing an increased greenhouse effect and ocean acidification" settled science? Yes. Is "how much will that affect us and the planet at different time scales" settled science? Not completely, no. The climate system is incredibly hard to model. What scientists are doing in the latter regard is mak…

Well, reduce emissions and more seriously consider geoengineering. A lot of otherwise-reasonable climate researchers seem to have an unduly negative view of potential direct interventions in the climate.

How can you tell that they didn't seriously consider your favorite argument? Usually geoengineering is not a direct part of the science of measuring climate change.

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

#82

Post by tasubotadas »

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.

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

#83

Post by mnl »

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.

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

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

#85

Post by bostik »

js8 wrote: post #74
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…

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 offspring won 2nd or 3rd place in science fair. The rest of the family were proud, but those from Russia simply considered them having failed. The mentality they carried was simple: "If you don't win, it's not worth noting. Improve."

What makes this truly interesting is that the USSR/Russian education system and culture has produced a much less gender-imbalanced outcome.[0] And going off on a tangent - I have no idea whether these things are related or not, but at least in maths those educated in Russian school system are routinely considered pretty hard-core.

0: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39579321

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

#86

Post by mirimir »

abecedarius wrote: post #79

This seems new, and passed over in all the comments so far: > None of them had ever heard of a paper in any field being disappeared after formal publication. Rejected prior to publication? Of course. Retracted? Yes, but only after an investigation, the results of which would then be made public by way of explanation. But simply disappeared? Never. If a formally refereed and published paper can later be erased from th…

Looks like there's no hard copy. It's totally online.[0]

I checked https://web.archive.org/ but the 2017/10/23 snapshot ends at p. 1539,[1] and the 2017/12/01 snapshot has the substitute paper.[2]

    Ajay Kumar, Niteesh Sahni, and Dinesh Singh 	 
    Invariance under finite Blaschke factors on BMOA 	1641
So unless someone grabbed it, it's toast. Except for the preprint, anyway.

0) http://nyjm.albany.edu/nyjm.html

1) https://web.archive.org/web/20171027011421/http://nyjm.alban...

2) https://web.archive.org/web/20171201163957/http://nyjm.alban...

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

#87

Post by maxnoe »

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.

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 outliers, and to be clear, in both directions!

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

#88

Post by n4r9 »

> Google engineer James Damore suggested that several innate biological factors, including gender differences in variability, might help explain gender disparities in Silicon Valley hi-tech jobs.

Did he? I read it when it came to light and briefly again just now and cannot see any mention of higher variability amongst men. Psychological differences, yes, but mostly in the slightly vague "women like people, men like things" or "women are more neurotic" sense.

I'd also question the premise that Damore was fired merely for bringing up psychological differences. He also bridged the is/ought gap by making several demands of Google's hiring practices.

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

#89

Post by trolleyhacker »

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:

> Steinberger replied later that day. 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.” Faced with the loss of his own scientific legacy, he had capitulated.

It's sad that these lunatics have the power to do these things, but that's why people appease them.

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

#90

Post by nervlord »

quotemstr wrote: post #45
brenschluss wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The paper then goes on to discuss, in detail, how differences in selectivity drive differences in variability, so the passage you quoted does not mean that the author is imagining A and B to be equally selective. The author is just asserting that both of his arbitrary sexes might be selective in an absolute sense. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, especially since you've opted not to quote or address the…

she doesn't like the conclusion, so she's scrambling to find something wrong with it, rather than taking her time, reading the entire thing and steel-manning it she's hoping to hit on an easy win.

Evidence: The first thing she "found" was right at the start of the document. Very convenient.

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