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I'm surprised you found that rebuttal strong, I found it exceedingly weak. She complains that the original author used a few of her own unreviewed studies, fair

by ditonal 14y ago

I'm surprised you found that rebuttal strong, I found it exceedingly weak. She complains that the original author used a few of her own unreviewed studies, fair criticism, but doesn't present any evidence that it was wrong. She complains that the original author painted the research as one-sided that men negotiate better, then reviews the research and show that it is in fact pretty one-sided. Then, having done nothing to really dispute the accuracy of the research evidence being presented, she goes into an unsubstantiated rant about privilege and minorities, which is largely unrelated to the book. It's true maybe the original book failed to address some of these issues, but it doesn't make the book wrong as much as incomplete. As she completely fails to hide her overarching political bias going into the rebuttal, her rebuttal made no striking critique on the book's research nor presents much conflicting research, and half the rebuttal was spent rehashing third wave feminism talking points rather than making scientific arguments, only to summarize by saying that book was shoddy science and sexist, I would not consider this a strong rebuttal at all.

jholman 14y ago
I think it's strong in one respect: it alleges somewhat convincingly that the book is based on appallingly scant evidence. On unpublished paper by the author, two maybe-reviewed papers also by the author, and one anecdote (whence the title). And the rebuttal does provide evidence that the author's studies, if not wrong, are probably not applicable to the question. And notes that WDA even ignores half of what her own papers showed. If true, this is pretty damning, in that it reduces the entire book to "I think this is what is going on. Here's a totally-vague plan of action that focuses on this one dimension." If true, we shouldn't be citing the book in conversations about what reality looks like. All in all, I think the part of the rebuttal that said 'the science in the book was shoddy' was relatively strong. This perhaps-useful rebuttal is, I agree, buried in a largely-unrelated rant about what the rebuttal-author wishes every discussion of feminism (or privilege in general) was about. As you say, third-wave feminism talking points. Whether they're interesting or not, they're not what the book is about. Sorry, jstrecker, you don't get to dictate the content of all conversation. (To give the ranter eir due, I think ranting about privilege -- the subject of the rant -- is largely correct, and deserves more of us thinking about it more often. I'm not sure the tactics of the crazy-street-preacher are the most effective ones, though.)

by ditonal 14y ago

jholman 14y ago

I think it's strong in one respect: it alleges somewhat convincingly that the book is based on appallingly scant evidence. On unpublished paper by the author, two maybe-reviewed papers also by the author, and one anecdote (whence the title). And the rebuttal does provide evidence that the author's studies, if not wrong, are probably not applicable to the question. And notes that WDA even ignores half of what her own papers showed. If true, this is pretty damning, in that it reduces the entire book to "I think this is what is going on. Here's a totally-vague plan of action that focuses on this one dimension." If true, we shouldn't be citing the book in conversations about what reality looks like. All in all, I think the part of the rebuttal that said 'the science in the book was shoddy' was relatively strong. This perhaps-useful rebuttal is, I agree, buried in a largely-unrelated rant about what the rebuttal-author wishes every discussion of feminism (or privilege in general) was about. As you say, third-wave feminism talking points. Whether they're interesting or not, they're not what the book is about. Sorry, jstrecker, you don't get to dictate the content of all conversation. (To give the ranter eir due, I think ranting about privilege -- the subject of the rant -- is largely correct, and deserves more of us thinking about it more often. I'm not sure the tactics of the crazy-street-preacher are the most effective ones, though.)