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Mega Science projects are always huge collaborative efforts. This remarkable scientific achievement is now unfairly focused on an individual. Lets compare this
by old_rot 8y ago
Mega Science projects are always huge collaborative efforts. This remarkable scientific achievement is now unfairly focused on an individual. Lets compare this with a couple of other mega science discoveries. The gravitational waves detection discovery was not attributed to any single individual. The collaboration got the credit for it. Back in 2012 when ATLAS experiment at CERN announced the discovery of Higgs boson, the collaboration spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti made the announcement through quite an impressive presentation of the results. Yet the discovery was attributed to the whole collaboration. In both these occasions no Eureka moment photographs were publicized and stole the credit.
In particle physics, these practices evolved over decades, when specific individuals tried to claim credits for discoveries in an unfair way(Nobel dream by Gary Taubes gives a beautiful account of this). Many particle physics collaborations now have detailed constitution and guidelines on what images/graphs they can show to the public. Someone who first made the first Higgs mass plot which shows a 5 sigma evidence of Higgs observation could not have leaked that plot on social media.
However this narrative is inspiring and perhaps motivate many young woman to take up careers in science and promote a more welcoming atmosphere for women in STEM.
- black-tea 8y agoWomen have so much encouragement to enter science already. There have already been tons of "inspring and motivating" women held up as examples. We all know that merely possessing the required genitalia and being sufficiently attractive is enough to be held up as the next female champion of whatever. Tech conferences have been cancelled after the anonymous selection process selected only men. Women are given special treatment, special places, special encouragement. They have special sources of funding. Hell, they even get paid more according to Google. All of this special treatment and they still don't want to do it. Add to this the fact that every man in tech has done a woman's work for her at some point. The last 20% of work takes 80% of the time, always. As men are getting less and less sex they are now realising this more and more. That is why we can cut through this bullshit immediately now.