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PhD gets 5x increase in postdoc interview invitations by just changing his name
- stevehind 4y agoSeems really bad!
- ak_111 4y agoIt's actually worst than I made out in the title. The responses he got under his original name were "almost all negative", not actual invitations. While almost all the response under his pseudonym were positive, some getting out of their way to pull him in.
- throwoutway 4y agoI was curious what her percentage of overlap was between the 17 rejects and 54 accepts (or even the 87 responses) but that was not mentioned.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoEveryone should be reminded that Twitter is not for posting actual science.
- throwoutway 4y agoNOTE: Not sure why my auto-correct changed "the" to "her"
- wai1234 4y agoIt's actually worse still. ALL of the 17 responses to the real name were negative if you read what he actually posted. That's an infinite increase. NOT 5x.
- dmix 4y agoBecause it’s fake Fake things always get greedy
- languageserver 4y agothe post was entirely made up, as acknowledged by the author
- keepquestioning 4y agoA good example of unconscious bias.
- ak_111 4y agoSure, we can give the benefit of the doubt that most were unconscious about it. But the scale of difference in the response rate means that we also can't rule out that there were a minority who rejected him because they are basically racist.
- dtx1 4y agoI doubt it's so UNconscious. I know enough people that would straight up filter any muslim out from working with them.
- zen_1 4y agoIt's also fun when you're Arab but not Muslim, and still get to deal with all the associated stereotypes...
- FerociousTimes 4y agoIt's also a hell lot more fun if you're Arab and atheist esp if you carry a religious name, you will be targeted all the time, and try to explain yourself and the associations that you might have with your background culture/religion. A lot of fun, I tell you!
- throw_m239339 4y agoNothing unconscious with that bias, quite the opposite.
- rcoveson 4y agoWestern name: 100 samples, 87 responses, 54 positive. Islamic name: 100 samples, 17 responses, 0 positive. That's not a "good example of unconscious bias". Unless there's something else going on here (one or both of the names used in the experiment had some sort of reputation in the community already, or some other aspects of the CV were changed in the experiment), this is an absolutely stunning result and evidence of very conscious bigotry. This is a Black person applying for a job in 1920s Atlanta kind of result. In 2022 academia!
- stirlo 4y ago[flagged]
- solardev 4y agoHow is that any different than biblical names like John or Abe?
- Jensson 4y agoBeing names Mohammed is like being named Jesus, it is directly tied to the religion. I suspect a person named Jesus from Texas would have a hard time getting into biology research programs as well.
- solardev 4y agoJesús is a common name in Spanish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_(name) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_(name)). And what about Mary, the dude's mom? Of all the criteria to evaluate someone by, "the label their parents gave them when they were born, which they had zero choice over" is pretty a silly one. (edit: and more to the point, a lot of common English names tie back to conservative bible types, but it's just so commonplace we don't think twice about it... the same with the Mohammeds and Jesuses of their cultures, they only look foreign when they're in our context)
- Jensson 4y agoBasically only religious persons names their kids Mohammed, those who quit the religion will not put the burden of that name on their kids. I suspect the same thing about Jesus even in the Spanish world, Christianity is very popular in the Spanish world as well. But to be fair I have met way more Muslims than I have met Christians so I am not as sure about it, but Mohammed is for sure a religious name meaning they had religious parents.
- solardev 4y ago
- abc_lisper 4y agoBefore a knee jerk response of unconscious bias, which I’m in no way denying, it is more important to know how this research was conducted. What about the publications and references? It’s not like the job is flipping burgers - postdoctoral positions are extremely specific and people tend to know each other within a couple of hops on their social network.
- detaro 4y agoWouldn't that in all cases benefit the real CV over the fake one? (because if you started to look up the fake person you'd find less useful results than for the real name, which would turn up real publications)
- nuclearnice1 4y agoNo. You’d find more information on the real person. But the news might be bad.
- locallost 4y agoSo they favored the made up person?
- s1artibartfast 4y agoPlausable if someone has a bad reputation
- ak_111 4y agoI wouldn't say that all postdocs are extremely specific in a field like plant biology. You might require the postdoc to be knowledgable of certain lab practices only for example. In fact, in many cases it is very unlikely that you will find a postdoc that has done work in a cutting-edge niche area that a professor is interested in, so the pool of candidates even globally is not sufficient. Your best hope is to find a postdoc in an adjacent area who you can train up on what you are doing.
- ak_111 4y ago
- nullifidian 4y agoDo they not check the actual publication record? It shouldn't have worked at all with a fake name.
- ak_111 4y agoAt the stage of shortlisting for the interview, a lot of people don't actually go out and check the paper, they just register it is published in a good journal, they might do a deep dive when preparing for the interview if at all. Especially in a field like plant biology, papers probably have many authors, so even if you check the paper you might not pay attention to the author list (or he could have chosen a name that looks like one of the co-authors in some of his papers?)
- netsharc 4y agoMaybe the papers have names like M. Lastname, and M could be extrapolated as Mohamad or Michael...
- nullifidian 4y ago
- random314 4y agoHe only changed his name, not his education history. Please don't try to justify discrimination based on color or national origin. It is, in fact, against the law.
- nullifidian 4y ago>not his education history. Provided that someone has actually read his educational history. It's more likely the reading has stopped at "From: Muhammad Abdullah". And I'm trying to find the likeliest explanation of the phenomenon other than the 'omnipresent racism' theory. Please don't accuse people of thought crimes without a sufficient basis.
- hexomancer 4y agoThere was a similar post a few days ago where someone did this but instead of changing their name they changed their gender (female names got significantly more responses). That post got flagged and this post is in the frontpage. Interesting.
- gadflyinyoureye 4y agoDang! That’s interesting. Just give this post time.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago[flagged]
- redox99 4y ago> Is it still racist? Or is it just unfair stereotyping? Many stereotypes are based on reality. But just because X population is Y% more likely to do Z, doesn't make it fair to extrapolate this to individuals, and doesn't make it less racist.
- space_fountain 4y agoNot commenting on that post because I didn’t see it but just noting. Some people support affirmative action. There are arguments that can be used that are somewhat convincing. Correcting generational feedback loops is hard and may require more than just blind indifference. Personally I think affirmative action can go too far, but it is very much a live issue in politics for good reason. Meanwhile there aren’t many who would say discrimination against people from the Middle East is good
- matrix_overload 4y agoWell, there's a difference between supporting something, and trying to actively shut down any discussion revealing arguments against it. The best solutions are always compromises born in debates between disagreeing sides. With one side endlessly silencing anything that doesn't go with their narrative, we won't see that happening anymore.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- demindiro 4y agoWhat was the western name? I assume the last name was also changed?
- ericmcer 4y agoHow do you get rid of unconscious bias? I am assuming this wasn't malicious and they don't have a 'no foreign sounding names' qualification that they are filtering by, but our brain is a pattern matching machine and if an industry has an overwhelming number of one race/gender/orientation/whatever won't the brain just naturally bias towards that? Even though individuals say they would never be biased, the subconscious element of it seems inevitable.
- LatteLazy 4y agoCynical question: are there 200+ post doc positions for someone to apply to at one point where their experience and publications are actually relevant? How many positions is "on the differentiation of the leaf morpho-physiological traits between native and non-native plants on a Mediterranean island (Mallorca)" actually relevant to?
- random314 4y agoGreat point. This is exactly why no one should use their native names in job applications.
- LatteLazy 4y agoI work in finance, everyone i deal with who is Chinese has 2 names, a local one and an English one. So you talk to people, they are introduced to westerners like me as James or Susan. Then you find out they are actually Bai Zhang but they are (understandably) tired of spelling it, getting it mis-pronounced or getting called Zhang Bai or similar. I always thought that was very sensible. I wonder if I should do the same? I would if I moved there.
- tmtvl 4y agoI visited Taiwan once and I was amused that several people were introduced to me as "Bob Wang" and "Jason Hsu" and such. Which I very much appreciate because I'm very bad at the tones, I especially can't do that downy-uppy one to save my life.
- zephrx1111 4y ago
- webkike 4y agoThat sounds an awful lot like racism to me
- wudangmonk 4y agoCompletely agree, they really could be anything. What if they are a jelly-fish like creature that only communicates through touch?. I wouldn't even know where to begin having a conversation with such a thing.
- dotancohen 4y agoTouch it.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoto assume you have nothing in common because someone has a foreign-sounding name is racism
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y agoI’ve had coworkers with Muslim-sounding names before and casual work conversation was about the same. It’s not like we usually sit around discussing religious doctrine.
- FerociousTimes 4y agoNot all Muslims are religious nutjobs either.
- baud147258 4y agoon the other hand, all the religious nutjobs I met at work were Muslims. But that might be a sample bias as I'm in Western Europe and not the US
- kumarsw 4y agoA lot of people are debating if this post is legit. I can't make any definite statements, but an 87% response rate for any job application is extremely high.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ALittleLight 4y agoThe crazy thing is he says 54 people were willing to accept a fellowship from his Western name. How does that work, exactly? In his application he communicates that he also has a fellowship available that he could give to the people he is applying to? It doesn't make sense to me.
- johndhi 4y agoPretty wildly different rate. I tend not to believe science reporter in three tweets though. Would like to see methods and peer review.
- cinntaile 4y agoThe method is in the tweet and we're peer reviewing the tweet right now.
- ALittleLight 4y agoI don't believe it. The change in response rate is far too large and in the opposite direction I would expect. It goes from "0 accept Mohammed" to "54% would accept a fellowship from Michael". I could not imagine a dumber result.
- moralestapia 4y ago"The results themselves were not surprising to me. I was more surprised to encounter harassment from researchers constantly advocating for equality, inclusion, and diversity." If he's holding it high He's telling a lie - Steely Dan
- Jiro 4y agoWell, he was telling a lie.
- rdevsrex 4y agoI suppose this is a question of what do we value more? The independence of researchers to run their own show and hire who they want, or trying to make the academic playing field level for all?
- redox99 4y agoI don't mean to discredit the author of the tweet, but it's not a good idea to become outraged because of tweets that have no proof and no known methodology for their study.
- Hitton 4y ago>You’re unable to view this Tweet because this account owner limits who can view their Tweets. From the comments here I can picture what the tweet was about, but considering how quickly it was made private I would be wary of trusting it too much.
- pickledish 4y agoSnapshot of the tweet since (at least for me) it seems to be private now: https://web.archive.org/web/20220918142648/https://twitter.com/Mohamad_IPS/status/1571214032937394176 https://web.archive.org/web/20220918142648/https://twitter.c...
- demindiro 4y agoIt is still visible on Nitter instances (e.g. https://nitter.priv.pw/Mohamad_IPS/status/1571214032937394176 https://nitter.priv.pw/Mohamad_IPS/status/157121403293739417...)
- BLanen 4y ago
- jpambrun 4y agoNot a professor, but I used to be a lecturer and I still get some spam looking email application from foreign students. I am sure this is detrimental to real applicant.
- TraceWoodgrains 4y agoWhen I asked the author of the viral thread, he said he took the wording directly from a reddit thread a few days ago, then deleted his acknowledgment, hid my question, and locked down further replies within minutes. Something is very off about this story. https://twitter.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1571630620744245248 https://twitter.com/tracewoodgrains/status/15716306207442452...
- TraceWoodgrains 4y agoContext on why the Twitter thread was deleted: https://twitter.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1571648934694756352 https://twitter.com/tracewoodgrains/status/15716489346947563... He nuked his account from orbit after confirming he copied from a reddit thread in response to closer scrutiny. Without extensive documentation of a sort that seems unlikely now, it seems best to treat this whole story as a fabrication.
- vinni2 4y agoThis makes no sense. If you change your name you loose all papers and citations in Google Scholar and other academic networks for example. It’s not an easy fix. Everyone looks at google scholar stats before interviewing.
- aaron695 4y ago
- isaacfrond 4y agoThere was Dutch PhD research done not so long ago. https://www.advalvas.vu.nl/nieuws/met-een-arabische-naam-heb-je-minder-kans-op-een-baan https://www.advalvas.vu.nl/nieuws/met-een-arabische-naam-heb... Translation of the relevant part: With an Arabic name you have less chance of a job Employers still discriminate on a large scale, according to the dissertation of the Utrecht sociologist Lieselotte Blommaert. She put more than six hundred resumes online on websites where employers look for personnel, half were posted by fictitious natives, the other half by fictitious immigrant applicants. Highly educated people discriminate less The CV of Joris or Jan appears to be requested by employers fifty percent more often than the CV of Aicha or Amir. Once the resumes have been viewed, native applicants appear to have a 60% higher chance of being invited for an interview. “It doesn't matter what kind of education people have,” says Blommaert. “It happens to immigrants regardless of their gender, education level or age.” Discrimination is not always malicious, emphasizes Blommaert. “The research shows that unconscious processes also have an influence. When a lot of application letters come in, people still select intuitively.” For example, employers who have more positive contact with immigrants discriminate less, as do women. Also striking: people with a higher education are less inclined to discriminate.