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CERN cuts ties with 'sexist' scientist Alessandro Strumia

bbc.com

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

#81

Post by sonnyblarney »

tptacek wrote: post #76
bhouston wrote: post #6

I am reminded of Larry Summers, then the head of Harvard, who said something similar: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/jan/18/educationsge... I think that previously there was a distinct issue with not enough women going through the degree programs. If the degree programs are 80% men and 20% women, statistically the men will outperform the women in outlier achievements just because there will likely be more p…

Last September, Professor Strumia stated that “physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation" at a presentation at the Cern the workshop. He also showed cartoons deriding women campaigning for equality in science and presented the results of an analysis that he claimed showed that work conducted by female physicists was not as good as their male counterparts. Did Larry Summers do anything as overt as…

Click the link below and have a look at the cartoon in question.

Though I can realize how some might be offended, it's not an offensive cartoon.

Or rather - the 'offensiveness of the cartoon' is only a function of one's sensitivity to intersectional issues.

So any cartoon/animation that is 'against' the intersectional view will be regarded as 'offensive'.

The very fact that this cartoon could be regarded as 'offensive' is ironically at the heart of this debate.

We all have a right to be offended, but we also have a right to express ourselves within reason. The cartoon I guess was a needless poke in the eye but it's really not that bad.

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

#82

Post by jmole »

bhouston wrote: post #6

I am reminded of Larry Summers, then the head of Harvard, who said something similar: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/jan/18/educationsge... I think that previously there was a distinct issue with not enough women going through the degree programs. If the degree programs are 80% men and 20% women, statistically the men will outperform the women in outlier achievements just because there will likely be more p…

I've been reading recently about a structural/sociocultural/technological phenomenon that's actually holding women back in a field where women tend to dominate in representation at the academic level, but are regularly outcompeted by men at the professional level.

Piano playing.

It all comes down to the shape of the instrument, and hand-span, which is unquestionably (and uncontroversially) larger in men than in women: http://www.smallpianokeyboards.org/uploads/3/4/1/6/34165129/... (from http://www.smallpianokeyboards.org/hand-span-data.html)

The interesting thing is that there is a solution to the problem, the 7/8 piano, which has an octave spacing of 5.5" as opposed to the 6.5" on a typical piano.

The thing is, no one really takes it seriously outside of a few universities and a dedicated group that's trying to advance this cause.

Even women who learned to play long ago grouse that "I can play a regular piano, you just have to use different technique!", but won't admit to themselves or to others that the technique they're required to use is a detriment to playing the instrument with ease.

The other issue is that these pianos are hard to come by, since almost every manufacturer makes pianos of the same keyboard size, and pianists are one of the few musicians expected to play on whatever instrument they're given.

The other interesting thing is that the majority of men would actually play better on these pianos, because they would suddenly have "rachmaninoff hands", but the legacy of having hundreds of thousands of existing pianos just sitting around prevents progress from being made toward this goal.

P.S. if anyone wants to make a startup company for building 7/8 digital pianos (of which there are none currently on the market), hit me up.

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

#83

Post by tptacek »

nabla9 wrote: post #28

You can't start neutral discussion with weak evidence, strong conclusion and open hostility. Strumia could have just presented his findings neutrally, without already made up his mind and having a clearly visible agenda and hostility. There is a pattern that is repeating: 1. Scientist has a political opinion on difficult politically volatile issue that is outside his field. 2. Scientist finds some supporting evidence…

There are really strong parallels between this and the Ted Hill NYJM fiasco. And, like the physicists in this story, professional mathematicians pointed out that Hill's paper was wildly inappropriate for the venue. Both Hill and Strumia tried to launder their institutional credibility into authority to make political arguments. Arguably, Hill was more successful, even if his stunt was more egregious.

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

#85

Post by thaumasiotes »

bhouston wrote: post #6

I am reminded of Larry Summers, then the head of Harvard, who said something similar: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/jan/18/educationsge... I think that previously there was a distinct issue with not enough women going through the degree programs. If the degree programs are 80% men and 20% women, statistically the men will outperform the women in outlier achievements just because there will likely be more p…

> If male variance is higher, there are likely both benefits and downsides to it

Yes, but the general concept is that the benefits and the downsides occur in different people. A single person doesn't illustrate "the benefits and the downsides" of greater variability any more than a single person can illustrate variability.

WRT issues of pure sample size, you can see one of the standard supports for GMVH in the SAT Total Group Report for 2018 here: https://reports.collegeboard.org/pdf/2018-total-group-sat-su...

Of the 2,135,788 students who took the SAT during high school, graduated (high school) in 2018, and had a gender, 1,117,329 were female and 1,018,459 were male. (751 had no gender.) 7% of the females, or ~78,000, scored 700 or above on the math section. 12% of the males, or ~120,000, did the same. So at the 91st percentile males are already outnumbering females by more than two to one after being pulled from similarly sized samples.

The greater-male-variability hypothesis says that males should equally outnumber females among low achievers. These tables don't support that -- 1% of females score below 300 in math, compared to 1% of males; 12% of females score below 400 compared to 11% of males.

The usual response to this is that we assume the SAT comprehensively samples high-ability students -- if you'll get a good score, you are strongly encouraged to take the test -- while mostly overlooking low-ability students, who may see no reason to bother.

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

#86

Post by tptacek »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #81
tptacek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last September, Professor Strumia stated that “physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation" at a presentation at the Cern the workshop. He also showed cartoons deriding women campaigning for equality in science and presented the results of an analysis that he claimed showed that work conducted by female physicists was not as good as their male counterparts. Did Larry Summers do anything as overt as…

Click the link below and have a look at the cartoon in question. Though I can realize how some might be offended, it's not an offensive cartoon. Or rather - the 'offensiveness of the cartoon' is only a function of one's sensitivity to intersectional issues. So any cartoon/animation that is 'against' the intersectional view will be regarded as 'offensive'. The very fact that this cartoon could be regarded as 'offensiv…

Your rebuttal is tautological; you're essentially saying "this presentation was only offensive to people who were offended by it". Well, sure. A gauge for how offended people were by it: CERN immediately apologized and ultimately fired Strumia for it.

I don't know how "offensive" I find it, and I'm not a physicist, but I try to put myself in the shoes of a physicist attending a workshop at CERN when someone gets up on stage with a presentation titled "Experimental test of a new global discrete symmetry" and it turns out to be a lecture about "Cultural Marxism", and I assume I'd have been pissed too.

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

#87

Post by guitarbill »

melling wrote: post #38
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.

He has some statistics? Shark attacks increase in the summer and so do the sales of ice cream. There has been a lot of discrimination so it might be a little early to look at the data. Consider: The first women was admitted to Yale in 1966. The woman who helped Einstein with the math for General Relativity couldn’t get a job at a university without some help. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Noether

In the UK, significantly more women study at university now than men [0][1] (not in Physics though). I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Prof Strumia, but simply pointing out that maybe we can agree we've come a long way, and that historial data or past injustices is not a good starting point for policymaking that will affect the bright minds of young uni students.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/28/university... [1] https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/11-01-2018/sfr247-higher-educati...

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

#88

Post by sonnyblarney »

tptacek wrote: post #79
sonnyblarney wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC's characterization I think is unfair, I suggest HN'ers actually read the presentation. While controversial, I don't think it's poignantly offensive. I'm wary of researchers getting into flame wars and I guess CERN does have the right to avoid such things, at the same time, he seems to be making some points with a lot of data - the best thing someone concerned with opinions could do is actually debunk them ins…

It's a formal presentation at a CERN workshop that invokes "Cultural Marxism". CERN had to apologize for the presentation after the workshop. Of course they're pissed.

They had to apologize because some people were going to be offended, surely, it doesn't mean the presentation is intellectually offensive.

'PR' is different than 'Science'.

'Cultural Marxism' is just a popular term for Intersectionalism, and it's a real issue, particularly on campus.

People should be able to talk about issues that are a little bit uncomfortable.

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

#89

Post by thaumasiotes »

jmole wrote: post #82
bhouston wrote: post #6

I am reminded of Larry Summers, then the head of Harvard, who said something similar: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/jan/18/educationsge... I think that previously there was a distinct issue with not enough women going through the degree programs. If the degree programs are 80% men and 20% women, statistically the men will outperform the women in outlier achievements just because there will likely be more p…

I've been reading recently about a structural/sociocultural/technological phenomenon that's actually holding women back in a field where women tend to dominate in representation at the academic level, but are regularly outcompeted by men at the professional level. Piano playing. It all comes down to the shape of the instrument, and hand-span, which is unquestionably (and uncontroversially) larger in men than in women…

> The other issue is that these pianos are hard to come by, since almost every manufacturer makes pianos of the same keyboard size, and pianists are one of the few musicians expected to play on whatever instrument they're given.

This is a good point, but it seems to be determined by the fundamentals of pianos. Moving a piano is difficult enough that I wouldn't expect this to change. We could all switch to keyboards...

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

#90

Post by danbolt »

jmole wrote: post #82
bhouston wrote: post #6

I am reminded of Larry Summers, then the head of Harvard, who said something similar: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/jan/18/educationsge... I think that previously there was a distinct issue with not enough women going through the degree programs. If the degree programs are 80% men and 20% women, statistically the men will outperform the women in outlier achievements just because there will likely be more p…

I've been reading recently about a structural/sociocultural/technological phenomenon that's actually holding women back in a field where women tend to dominate in representation at the academic level, but are regularly outcompeted by men at the professional level. Piano playing. It all comes down to the shape of the instrument, and hand-span, which is unquestionably (and uncontroversially) larger in men than in women…

This is really interesting. I had no idea about 7/8 pianos but I’m certainly going to Google then up now.
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