Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by nervlord » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:19 AM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #65

quotemstr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides, the merit of this paper's argument is irrelevant. It could be totally wrong and the treatment it's receiving would still be abhorrent. Getting into the weeds on population genetics might be interesting, but it doesn't make a difference when it comes to the idea that we should debate results, not censor them.

Yes, that is the point here. If the article had been rejected everywhere, debating its soundness would be relevant. But this paper was accepted, and actually published , so that's irrelevant.

no, it was not. It was withdrawn, did you read the article or did you see "omg states facts that i am uncomfortable with" and decide to go no further?

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

#92

Post by nervlord » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:21 AM UTC

orangecat wrote: post #38

waterhouse wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a similar vein, there's a paper with the fascinating name "Thirty Years of Denying the Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence: Implications for Prevention and Treatment". https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233717660_Thirty_Ye... "Method 7: Harass, Threaten, or Penalize Researchers Who Publish Evidence on Gender Symmetry ... The most extreme example was the experience of Susan Steinmetz. When she was…

Wow. That's especially amazing considering that the claim of similar domestic violence rates actually supports the progressive axiom that there are no innate psychological differences between men and women.

oh they conveniently forget that all the time, for example, if gender is a biological construct, so is sexual preference, suddenly all those bigoted religious types talking about the sexual depravity of homosexuality and their claims that it's all there own choice have an unexpected allie.

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

#93

Post by nervlord » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:22 AM UTC

jonnybgood wrote: post #62

This is a one-sided story pushing a "Us vs Them" narrative. I can see nothing productive coming out of this.

ofcourse not, it's not talking about anything you want to hear. If it was an article about something you cared about though, or that would offer some advancement of your pet cause, i'm quite sure you'd be out there with your placards and the silly chants

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

#94

Post by nervlord » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:27 AM UTC

duskwuff wrote: post #20

oflannabhra wrote: post #17

I had not heard of Quillette until Tyler Cowen interviewed [0] Claire Lehmann, the founding editor. This article, and the precipitating events, fit perfectly into Quillette’s raison d’etre [1]. [0] - https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/claire-lehmann-t... [1] - https://quillette.com/about/

Indeed. The suspicious part of me wonders if the authors deliberately engineered this situation.

oh yes, because there is HUGE reward in fighting against the most popular narrative /S.

In all seriousness, sometimes for certain people (outliers) there can be, but like musicians and sports stars for every one person who turns a censored idea into a speaking tour there are millions who are just quietly fired.

You can be suspicious all you want, but frankly that is totally irrelevant info and frankly useless. Some people are suspicious that the earth is round, either it is or it isn't and if you think he's wrong, prove him wrong and publish your findings, that's the system. The system is not "I don't like this idea so it must be wrong"

This is honestly going to end in disaster soon enough

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

#95

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:40 AM UTC

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.

Chances are you are shorter, physically weaker, etc than the average (or chosen by random, it is the same thing) man.

I am very short, so the same things apply to me, it doesn't mean I like it, but reality is that which doesn't go away when you deny it.

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

#96

Post by darawk » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:43 AM UTC

n4r9 wrote: post #88

> 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 t…

> 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.

I don't think he made demands. He called for open discussion, and a reconsideration of aggressive recruitment of women.

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

#97

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:43 AM UTC

brenschluss wrote: post #31

The paper seems to have some egregious and basic errors. Take a look at the paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.04184.pdf On page 2, it says (in discussing Special Case 1): "If sex A is relatively selective and will mate only with the top most desirable quarter of sex B, then all of the next generation will be offspring of the more variable subpopulation B1" However, if you look at the histogram in Figure 1, it's clear…

Honestly, if there had been basic errors in the paper, they wouldn't have had to ban it.

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

#98

Post by Zanni » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:45 AM UTC

js8 wrote: post #78

kupiakos wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 idea that I'm simply less biologically capable than men in any way" Nobody (serious) is saying that. First, when this is talked about, it's always about averages, which are meaningless from individual perspective. Second, there are obvious biological traits where women are less capable than men on average, like weightlifting. There are also traits where women are more capable, like having kids. These are facts t…

Weightlifting is an excellent example. It's not controversial in the least to say that men (on the whole) are stronger than women. And the strongest man will almost certainly be stronger than the strongest woman. But that doesn't mean a particular woman can't out lift a particular man. I see this all the time at my CrossFit box, where there are women who regularly put more weight on a barbell than I can manage. I'm not even talking about pound for pound of bodyweight either. I'm talking about women who are 50 pounds lighter than I am who can still deadlift 50 pounds more than I can. Some of these CrossFit women are strong.

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

#99

Post by another-cuppa » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:48 AM UTC

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.

What do you mean by less capable than "men"? Do you really think anyone is saying you're less capable than all men at anything at all? I can say with complete confidence that that is completely untrue. But you must accept that there are some people who are better than you at some particular thing. And if you must worry about who is the very best in the world at that particular thing it might well be a man. But why do you care?

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

#100

Post by PeterStuer » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:52 AM UTC

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.

A lot of otherwise-reasonable climate researchers seem to have an unduly negative view of potential direct interventions in the climate, and for good reason. Scientists know that theory and practice often are very different. You can't 'experiment' with global scale geo-engineering.

To put it in HN terms: you're deploying untested code for a global scale life support system written by a first-project-junior in an experimental new technology stack directly to production without having a test or staging environment, and there are no backups.