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If we are seeking truth, as we do in science, we must accept that there can never be anything wrong with attempting to analyze whether A outperforms B, no matte

If we are seeking truth, as we do in science, we must accept that there can never be anything wrong with attempting to analyze whether A outperforms B, no matter what A and B are. It doesn’t matter if it’s offensive or politically incorrect. So, what he did seems to be no more “overt” than attempting to analyze which thruster design is most efficient. If he’s wrong, the most appropriate and most effective rebuttal is a dispassionate fact-based one, not a moral one. There are going to be some things we learn that we don’t like to hear. I have no idea if this is one of them, and I’m not the person to ask. Either he is correct, and we have to deal with it, or he isn’t, and we don’t really advance (or worse, we regress) until someone examines the subject more closely and provides something closer to truth.

scott_s 8y ago
> His analysis was quickly dismissed as being unscientific and incorrect by experts in the impact of research. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47478537 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47478537 Racists and misogynist have been using bad science to justify their views for centuries. (See, for example, phrenology.) Once identified as such, we are under no obligation to continue suffering such fools.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  What do racists and misogynists have to do with anything being discussed? See, you’re doing it too. Maybe one day you can consider accepting the possibility that a non-racist, non-misogynist might wonder if race or sex can influence general outcomes in a given domain! Personally, I find the idea that it can only influence athletic performance (which I understand is a difference that polite society allows us to acknowledge) to be extremely unlikely. I actually would rank “women, in general, are inherently better than men at <currently male dominated field>“ to be more likely than “in general, men and women are exactly the same”.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    He didn't call you a racist or a misogynist, or even Strumia (though I'll say it: Strumia is a misogynist). He simply pointed out that the basic mechanisms of scientific discussion have been abused to push dumb ideas in the past, which is obviously true. That is in fact a flaw in your argument. You're the one getting triggered here.
    - leereeves 8y ago
      Do you know Strumia personally well enough to say what you said, or have you just bought into a smear campaign against him?
      - tptacek 8y ago
        I have bought into the campaign against him.
        yxn 8y ago
        Seems to be a good way to gain power for a talker like you.
    - cqqwdq 8y ago
      Of course he did: "Once identified as such, we are under no obligation to continue suffering such fools." How can this not be related to the issue at hand? Also, could you please read the guidelines and refrain from statements like "You're the one getting triggered here."?
- belorn 8y ago
  When it comes to gender equality discussion, both side seems to always accuse the other of bad science. To mention a few: The effect of estrogen on emotional stability. The effect of testosterone on violence and crime. The pay gap in respect to unadjusted versus adjusted data. Blind audition and p values. Domestic violence statistics and reported rate of abuse. If there is a neurobiological change in victims of sexual assault. Sexsomnia and how common it is. Campus rape statistics and if its one-quarter of all college girls.
tptacek 8y ago
No, for several reasons. First and most obviously, the purpose of this workshop was to further women's participation in high-energy physics (physics and computer science are the two most lopsided science fields; the need for need for more participation is obvious prima facie). It was not the purpose of the workshop to hash out Strumia's political beliefs, and had the workshop known what Strumia was going to present, they would have rejected it --- not for lack of truth, but for lack of relevance. Second, Strumia's presentation was unserious. It was unserious because of the cartoons. It was unserious because of the invocation of "cultural marxism". It was unserious because it had a title chosen to obscure the purpose of the talk. It was obscure because it has a whole slide allocated to Strumia's grievance about losing an academic role to a particular woman. There can be value in presenting a contrarian point of view at a summit with almost any premise. There is no value in trolling a venue, which is what he did. Third, as the sibling post observes, he was subsequently depantsed by his peers and sponsors, because he had neither the credibility in social sciences nor the credibility in his own field to be persuasive, and his underlying data did not rise to meet the dumb occasion he created for himself. We're essentially recapitulating the argument HN had over Ted Hill's NYJM paper, which was, I think, a little embarrassing for the Ted Hill defenders on HN. I stand by my summary: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  > the need for need for more participation is obvious prima facie) You lost me there, because in no way is that obvious prima facie. [Trigger warning, because adults can’t have dispassionate conversations about facts and ideas, and will cherry-pick then knee jerk, probably even in spite of this warning: I’m not saying that women don’t want to enter these fields in the next sentence. I’m not saying that the lack of women is purely because they aren’t interest in the subject. I’m not saying the opposite, either.] If women don’t want to enter these fields, there is absolutely no need to force them to. Taking this prima facie, and denying anyone the opportunity to even question the premise, is exactly the problem people have with this topic and the activism around it. You could not be more wrong about your claim that he was unserious. He was very serious and he thinks this is an important issue worthy of his time. There is nothing unserious about using cartoons to make a point, nor with using the term “cultural marxism.” That’s far better than “mansplaining”, and I dare you to tell anyone throwing that term around that they are unserious. And I don’t agree that he was depantsed by his peers and sponsors due to a lack of credibility. Personally, I think the motivations were emotion-driven. But it’s rarely productive to argue motivations. I don’t know what the Ted Hill thing is, but when I read comments like that, I wonder if they were actually embarrassed, or if you just want them to be. I think all of this posturing distracts from what really happened here. The guy is sick of identity politics (are we allowed to say that, or is it like cultural marxism?) and the distraction it’s causing in his field. That’s definitely a position I can relate to. Edit: Oh, that Ted Hill thing. No, his supporters certainly were not embarrassed. I do agree that it was an embarrassing moment for HN, likely for precisely the opposite reasons.

scott_s 8y ago

> His analysis was quickly dismissed as being unscientific and incorrect by experts in the impact of research. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47478537 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47478537 Racists and misogynist have been using bad science to justify their views for centuries. (See, for example, phrenology.) Once identified as such, we are under no obligation to continue suffering such fools.

lawnchair_larry 8y ago
What do racists and misogynists have to do with anything being discussed? See, you’re doing it too. Maybe one day you can consider accepting the possibility that a non-racist, non-misogynist might wonder if race or sex can influence general outcomes in a given domain! Personally, I find the idea that it can only influence athletic performance (which I understand is a difference that polite society allows us to acknowledge) to be extremely unlikely. I actually would rank “women, in general, are inherently better than men at <currently male dominated field>“ to be more likely than “in general, men and women are exactly the same”.
- tptacek 8y ago
  He didn't call you a racist or a misogynist, or even Strumia (though I'll say it: Strumia is a misogynist). He simply pointed out that the basic mechanisms of scientific discussion have been abused to push dumb ideas in the past, which is obviously true. That is in fact a flaw in your argument. You're the one getting triggered here.
  - leereeves 8y ago
    Do you know Strumia personally well enough to say what you said, or have you just bought into a smear campaign against him?
    - tptacek 8y ago
      I have bought into the campaign against him.
      - yxn 8y ago
        Seems to be a good way to gain power for a talker like you.
  - cqqwdq 8y ago
    Of course he did: "Once identified as such, we are under no obligation to continue suffering such fools." How can this not be related to the issue at hand? Also, could you please read the guidelines and refrain from statements like "You're the one getting triggered here."?
belorn 8y ago
When it comes to gender equality discussion, both side seems to always accuse the other of bad science. To mention a few: The effect of estrogen on emotional stability. The effect of testosterone on violence and crime. The pay gap in respect to unadjusted versus adjusted data. Blind audition and p values. Domestic violence statistics and reported rate of abuse. If there is a neurobiological change in victims of sexual assault. Sexsomnia and how common it is. Campus rape statistics and if its one-quarter of all college girls.

tptacek 8y ago

No, for several reasons. First and most obviously, the purpose of this workshop was to further women's participation in high-energy physics (physics and computer science are the two most lopsided science fields; the need for need for more participation is obvious prima facie). It was not the purpose of the workshop to hash out Strumia's political beliefs, and had the workshop known what Strumia was going to present, they would have rejected it --- not for lack of truth, but for lack of relevance. Second, Strumia's presentation was unserious. It was unserious because of the cartoons. It was unserious because of the invocation of "cultural marxism". It was unserious because it had a title chosen to obscure the purpose of the talk. It was obscure because it has a whole slide allocated to Strumia's grievance about losing an academic role to a particular woman. There can be value in presenting a contrarian point of view at a summit with almost any premise. There is no value in trolling a venue, which is what he did. Third, as the sibling post observes, he was subsequently depantsed by his peers and sponsors, because he had neither the credibility in social sciences nor the credibility in his own field to be persuasive, and his underlying data did not rise to meet the dumb occasion he created for himself. We're essentially recapitulating the argument HN had over Ted Hill's NYJM paper, which was, I think, a little embarrassing for the Ted Hill defenders on HN. I stand by my summary: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

lawnchair_larry 8y ago
> the need for need for more participation is obvious prima facie) You lost me there, because in no way is that obvious prima facie. [Trigger warning, because adults can’t have dispassionate conversations about facts and ideas, and will cherry-pick then knee jerk, probably even in spite of this warning: I’m not saying that women don’t want to enter these fields in the next sentence. I’m not saying that the lack of women is purely because they aren’t interest in the subject. I’m not saying the opposite, either.] If women don’t want to enter these fields, there is absolutely no need to force them to. Taking this prima facie, and denying anyone the opportunity to even question the premise, is exactly the problem people have with this topic and the activism around it. You could not be more wrong about your claim that he was unserious. He was very serious and he thinks this is an important issue worthy of his time. There is nothing unserious about using cartoons to make a point, nor with using the term “cultural marxism.” That’s far better than “mansplaining”, and I dare you to tell anyone throwing that term around that they are unserious. And I don’t agree that he was depantsed by his peers and sponsors due to a lack of credibility. Personally, I think the motivations were emotion-driven. But it’s rarely productive to argue motivations. I don’t know what the Ted Hill thing is, but when I read comments like that, I wonder if they were actually embarrassed, or if you just want them to be. I think all of this posturing distracts from what really happened here. The guy is sick of identity politics (are we allowed to say that, or is it like cultural marxism?) and the distraction it’s causing in his field. That’s definitely a position I can relate to. Edit: Oh, that Ted Hill thing. No, his supporters certainly were not embarrassed. I do agree that it was an embarrassing moment for HN, likely for precisely the opposite reasons.