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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.particlesfor

by geofft 8y ago

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 https://www.particlesforjustice.org linked in the article. The fact that it also contains a moral rebuttal does not detract from the scientific one.

mpweiher 8y ago
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 https://justiceforstrumia.org for a lengthy and somewhat more substantial rebuttal of the rebuttal.
- geofft 8y ago
  Thanks, I'm strongly in favor of this debate existing so I'm glad that site exists. As I read it, that site does not rebut any of the claims of particlesforjustice. It attacks a few sources used by particlesforjustice in defense of the claim that discrimination exists in STEM and potentially explains the reason why some groups perform more poorly. Granting, for argument, that those attacks are valid and the sources don't claim what they're being used to claim, that still does not rebut Strumia's argument. Indeed, justiceforstrumia says, "They object to Strumia's talk for 'mining' and 'misrepresenting' data, but their own case suffers from comparable flaws." In other words, perhaps Strumia's argument was flawed and so is the rebuttal; that still leaves us nowhere. The remainder of justiceforstrumia is a digression about James Damore, tribalistic thinking, why socialism is bad, horseshoe theory, the "war on gamers" (I'm not making that up, that's the exact title of a source offered by justiceforstrumia), and the importance of falsifiability. This would be interesting if at some point we got to the question of whether Strumia's claims were falsifiable or not, and whether particlesforjustice had in fact managed to prove them false, but the site never gets there. Assuming the sources offered by particlesforjustice in claims 1, 3, and 4 are invalid, claims 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 still stand. A coherent rebuttal would either say why those claims are invalid, or why those claims are inaccurate depictions of what Strumia said. Saying "You can't say person X's claims wrong, actually the whole ideology of science is broken and falsifiability is important" is not scientific debate; it is itself ideology. Saying "Here, let us determine whether these claims are false, through analysis and argument of the claims themselves and not their speakers" would be scientific debate. (Who wrote this site, btw? Is it from a scientist, or just someone random on the internet? It doesn't seem like it's written with the same understanding of scientific debate as particlesforjustice, so I'm trying to make sense of it.)
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Just a data point: the authors of ParticlesForJustice are 18 people from the field all with research affiliations, and the cosigners include 491 scientists with university and research lab affiliations --- this doesn't count the (vast) number of "additional signatures", many of which also have university high energy physics affiliations. There are 2x as many signatures on "ParticlesForJustice", and they appear to be of significantly higher quality.
  - mpweiher 8y ago
    > I'm strongly in favor of this debate Same here. However, the problem with this "debate" is that only one side of the debate is generally allowed and the burden of proof is dramatically different. For one side, "you can't disprove <vague allegations/ideas>" is sufficient. For the other, even the most overwhelming empirical evidence is not sufficient, will get you vilified, branded a sexist and potentially lose your job. > As I read it, that site does not rebut any of the claims of particlesforjustice. While I don't agree this is true, if anything, the reason would be that, as I wrote before, there actually is nothing substantive in the particlesforjustice site that one could rebut. This is probably why justiceforstrumia had a digression on falsifiability etc. To back up a bit, Strumia's presentation[1], was a reaction to the dominant narrative that the low representation of women in physics is due entirely due to horrific levels of sexism against women. These are quotes from his intro slide: -------------------------------------- “All women share the same kind of sad and unfair experiences since the be- ginning of their scientific career”. “Mansplaning. Gaslighting. White Male Hetero Privilege. Sexual harassment at epidemic levels. Micro-aggressions”. Men mobilize their masculinity supporting ... men in ways that advance careers. You don’t see? You have (unconscious) bias and steal credit to women. “Eval- uators tend to favour men”. “Scientific quality is a gender social construction”. “Excellence is the current buzzword. Gender equality should achieve the same”. “I have a dream: that ... excellence in science is no more distorted and sweletred by gender stereotypes or creeping discrimination”. “Positive discrimination and gender mainstreaming”, “We have to help women at all levels ... to academic positions”, “programmes for women ... challenged in court for discrimination” [vs men]. “People and culture can be obstacles for change”. -------------------------------------- So all he is trying to do is rebut these pretty horrific and vile accusations. Accusations that I am familiar with, they are pretty much the same ones levelled against men in tech. His counter-theory is that physics is not sexist or racist or nationalist but "open to good people from any background" Given that starting point, we pretty much have to take "Strumia's thesis" as the default. That is, unless there is compelling evidence for the charge of sexism, we need to assume that it isn't sexism. This also means that he doesn't have to conclusively prove his point, it's enough to offer alternative explanations for the observed phenomena. And he's pretty clear that that is what he is doing: he says explicitly that there are two explanations, one that it's all horrible sexism, the other that it isn't, and that he will present evidence that the second explanation is sufficient to explain the observations. I never saw a claim that the first conclusion is impossible, just that the second explanation is sufficient, and therefore the first one unnecessary. Which brings us back to particlesforjustice. As far as I can tell, all their points are, with minor variations, of the form: "but Strumia failed to take into account <some noun>, therefore his conclusion is invalid. There are two main problems with this: 1. No argument that takes this form is relevant to his argument, which was not "I have conclusive and final proof that this is the reason and there can be no other", but rather "I have a simpler explanation that explains the observation". So this alone would be sufficient to discount pretty much the whole particlesforjustice 2. The second problem is that they tend to not provide any evidence that <some noun> is actually true. Instead they assume that simply by stating <some noun>, one must accept that it is true. Essentially, they are doing exactly what Strumia criticised, which isn't surprising as that is how these things are handled. One small example: "Without a thorough understanding of these processes, it is impossible to conclude anything about people’s innate abilities." If it is impossible to make solid conclusions, how come we can conclude that it very definitely is sexism? Basically, they are making his argument for him, and apparently not even aware of it. 3. The third point is that what they claim as true simply isn't. That is, when things are concrete enough to be refutable, they can be and are refuted, easily. Some by the data that Strumia provided, some by justiceforstrumia. The reason one has to even mention falsifiability is that the whole particlesforjustice piece is such a mess. Coming back to your points that the particlesforjustice piece wasn't sufficiently rebutted: why do you hold justiceforstrumia to such a dramatically higher burden of proof than particlesforjustice? Cheers [1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_NyUhOZ8erdqU2AGZJZtNfFeA91Kefj/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_NyUhOZ8erdqU2AGZJZtNfFeA9...
zarkov99 8y ago
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_NyUhOZ8erdqU2AGZJZtNfFeA91Kefj/view 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.
- geofft 8y ago
  I didn't say CERN cut ties because other scientists rebutted the claims - CERN is entirely within their rights, and it is entirely appropriate for the progress of science, to cut ties because the researcher was incapable of collaborating in a productive manner with other scientists. I said that, nonetheless, the claims were rebutted in the end (unless they were not?), and therefore the comment "one would think Physicists could easily debunk them if they were bogus" does not apply - they have been debunked. The comment "Ideology over science" does not apply because there was science; the comment "feelings over truth" does not apply because there was truth; the comment "shrieking, hysterical pronouncements over rational argument" does not apply because there was rational argument.
belorn 8y ago
A lengthy reply could be made to each statement in particlesforjustice.org, which would be the healthy way for an academic conversation, but I will make an exception and just point out a few flaws. 1) The bell curve difference in variance is not rebutted, which is the central argument. It is the very first claim in the article, and the basis for all other claims. How should we interpret that the central argument is silently not mentioned by the rebuttal? 2) the Istanbul convention rebuttal misses that in modern studies on gender based violence, men report the same amount violence from partners as does women. The humanity of male victims should not up for debate and yet the here the particlesforjustice is arguing in favor of such discrimination.

by geofft 8y ago

mpweiher 8y ago

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

geofft 8y ago
Thanks, I'm strongly in favor of this debate existing so I'm glad that site exists. As I read it, that site does not rebut any of the claims of particlesforjustice. It attacks a few sources used by particlesforjustice in defense of the claim that discrimination exists in STEM and potentially explains the reason why some groups perform more poorly. Granting, for argument, that those attacks are valid and the sources don't claim what they're being used to claim, that still does not rebut Strumia's argument. Indeed, justiceforstrumia says, "They object to Strumia's talk for 'mining' and 'misrepresenting' data, but their own case suffers from comparable flaws." In other words, perhaps Strumia's argument was flawed and so is the rebuttal; that still leaves us nowhere. The remainder of justiceforstrumia is a digression about James Damore, tribalistic thinking, why socialism is bad, horseshoe theory, the "war on gamers" (I'm not making that up, that's the exact title of a source offered by justiceforstrumia), and the importance of falsifiability. This would be interesting if at some point we got to the question of whether Strumia's claims were falsifiable or not, and whether particlesforjustice had in fact managed to prove them false, but the site never gets there. Assuming the sources offered by particlesforjustice in claims 1, 3, and 4 are invalid, claims 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 still stand. A coherent rebuttal would either say why those claims are invalid, or why those claims are inaccurate depictions of what Strumia said. Saying "You can't say person X's claims wrong, actually the whole ideology of science is broken and falsifiability is important" is not scientific debate; it is itself ideology. Saying "Here, let us determine whether these claims are false, through analysis and argument of the claims themselves and not their speakers" would be scientific debate. (Who wrote this site, btw? Is it from a scientist, or just someone random on the internet? It doesn't seem like it's written with the same understanding of scientific debate as particlesforjustice, so I'm trying to make sense of it.)
- tptacek 8y ago
  Just a data point: the authors of ParticlesForJustice are 18 people from the field all with research affiliations, and the cosigners include 491 scientists with university and research lab affiliations --- this doesn't count the (vast) number of "additional signatures", many of which also have university high energy physics affiliations. There are 2x as many signatures on "ParticlesForJustice", and they appear to be of significantly higher quality.
- mpweiher 8y ago
  > I'm strongly in favor of this debate Same here. However, the problem with this "debate" is that only one side of the debate is generally allowed and the burden of proof is dramatically different. For one side, "you can't disprove <vague allegations/ideas>" is sufficient. For the other, even the most overwhelming empirical evidence is not sufficient, will get you vilified, branded a sexist and potentially lose your job. > As I read it, that site does not rebut any of the claims of particlesforjustice. While I don't agree this is true, if anything, the reason would be that, as I wrote before, there actually is nothing substantive in the particlesforjustice site that one could rebut. This is probably why justiceforstrumia had a digression on falsifiability etc. To back up a bit, Strumia's presentation[1], was a reaction to the dominant narrative that the low representation of women in physics is due entirely due to horrific levels of sexism against women. These are quotes from his intro slide: -------------------------------------- “All women share the same kind of sad and unfair experiences since the be- ginning of their scientific career”. “Mansplaning. Gaslighting. White Male Hetero Privilege. Sexual harassment at epidemic levels. Micro-aggressions”. Men mobilize their masculinity supporting ... men in ways that advance careers. You don’t see? You have (unconscious) bias and steal credit to women. “Eval- uators tend to favour men”. “Scientific quality is a gender social construction”. “Excellence is the current buzzword. Gender equality should achieve the same”. “I have a dream: that ... excellence in science is no more distorted and sweletred by gender stereotypes or creeping discrimination”. “Positive discrimination and gender mainstreaming”, “We have to help women at all levels ... to academic positions”, “programmes for women ... challenged in court for discrimination” [vs men]. “People and culture can be obstacles for change”. -------------------------------------- So all he is trying to do is rebut these pretty horrific and vile accusations. Accusations that I am familiar with, they are pretty much the same ones levelled against men in tech. His counter-theory is that physics is not sexist or racist or nationalist but "open to good people from any background" Given that starting point, we pretty much have to take "Strumia's thesis" as the default. That is, unless there is compelling evidence for the charge of sexism, we need to assume that it isn't sexism. This also means that he doesn't have to conclusively prove his point, it's enough to offer alternative explanations for the observed phenomena. And he's pretty clear that that is what he is doing: he says explicitly that there are two explanations, one that it's all horrible sexism, the other that it isn't, and that he will present evidence that the second explanation is sufficient to explain the observations. I never saw a claim that the first conclusion is impossible, just that the second explanation is sufficient, and therefore the first one unnecessary. Which brings us back to particlesforjustice. As far as I can tell, all their points are, with minor variations, of the form: "but Strumia failed to take into account <some noun>, therefore his conclusion is invalid. There are two main problems with this: 1. No argument that takes this form is relevant to his argument, which was not "I have conclusive and final proof that this is the reason and there can be no other", but rather "I have a simpler explanation that explains the observation". So this alone would be sufficient to discount pretty much the whole particlesforjustice 2. The second problem is that they tend to not provide any evidence that <some noun> is actually true. Instead they assume that simply by stating <some noun>, one must accept that it is true. Essentially, they are doing exactly what Strumia criticised, which isn't surprising as that is how these things are handled. One small example: "Without a thorough understanding of these processes, it is impossible to conclude anything about people’s innate abilities." If it is impossible to make solid conclusions, how come we can conclude that it very definitely is sexism? Basically, they are making his argument for him, and apparently not even aware of it. 3. The third point is that what they claim as true simply isn't. That is, when things are concrete enough to be refutable, they can be and are refuted, easily. Some by the data that Strumia provided, some by justiceforstrumia. The reason one has to even mention falsifiability is that the whole particlesforjustice piece is such a mess. Coming back to your points that the particlesforjustice piece wasn't sufficiently rebutted: why do you hold justiceforstrumia to such a dramatically higher burden of proof than particlesforjustice? Cheers [1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_NyUhOZ8erdqU2AGZJZtNfFeA91Kefj/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_NyUhOZ8erdqU2AGZJZtNfFeA9...

zarkov99 8y ago

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_NyUhOZ8erdqU2AGZJZtNfFeA91Kefj/view 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.

geofft 8y ago
I didn't say CERN cut ties because other scientists rebutted the claims - CERN is entirely within their rights, and it is entirely appropriate for the progress of science, to cut ties because the researcher was incapable of collaborating in a productive manner with other scientists. I said that, nonetheless, the claims were rebutted in the end (unless they were not?), and therefore the comment "one would think Physicists could easily debunk them if they were bogus" does not apply - they have been debunked. The comment "Ideology over science" does not apply because there was science; the comment "feelings over truth" does not apply because there was truth; the comment "shrieking, hysterical pronouncements over rational argument" does not apply because there was rational argument.

belorn 8y ago

A lengthy reply could be made to each statement in particlesforjustice.org, which would be the healthy way for an academic conversation, but I will make an exception and just point out a few flaws. 1) The bell curve difference in variance is not rebutted, which is the central argument. It is the very first claim in the article, and the basis for all other claims. How should we interpret that the central argument is silently not mentioned by the rebuttal? 2) the Istanbul convention rebuttal misses that in modern studies on gender based violence, men report the same amount violence from partners as does women. The humanity of male victims should not up for debate and yet the here the particlesforjustice is arguing in favor of such discrimination.