The Stolen Credit For What Makes Up the Sun

StartsWithABang writes: Sure, it's easy today to look at the Sun and know it's a ball of (mostly) hydrogen, generating energy by combining those protons in a chain into helium through the process of nuclear fusion. But before we even knew that nuclear fusion was possible, we needed to figure out what the Sun was made out of, a more difficult task than you'd imagine. The credit was given to Henry Norris Russell (of Hertzsprung-Russell diagram fame), but he completely stole the work from a woman you never heard of: his student, Cecilia Payne, after discouraging her from publishing her work on the subject four years prior.

Comments

Not Even Wrong

[radtea]

This is not even wrong. Payne had the idea first, Russell thought it was wrong, Russell later changed his mind and gave Payne credit: http://blogs.britannica.com/20... His work cites hers.

This is how science is supposed to work, although there is always a factor of fame involved in credit-giving, and women have in general not been as forceful in claiming or defending credit as men.

Furthermore, how many people claiming to be "outraged" by this were even aware of who had been given credit for figuring out the composition of the sun in the first place? Who amongst us is "shocked, shocked" that Russell--whom they had been giving credit to all these years, citing in papers, talking up at cocktail parties--didn't actually make the discovery that is commonly and incorrectly attributed to him?

Re:Not Even Wrong

[CrimsonAvenger]

Even wikipedia says that Russell gave her credit after he had arrived at the same answer using a different method. So how is this news?

Helium

[itzly]

The article missed the opportunity to mention that the spectral line for helium was unknown at the time, and was first discovered in the sun. Hence the name was adopted from Helios, the Greek god of the sun.

Re:Out of respect for Dice's agenda, let me ask...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dox this person and get them fired from their job!!!

-SJW

Re:Out of respect for Dice's agenda, let me ask...

[davydagger]

She made an important scientific breakthrough.

In my opinion, thats very sexy. 10/10, five stars.

Re: Fuck off

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation: From Wikipedia - "After Payne was proven correct, Russell briefly credited Payne for discovering that the sun had a different chemical composition from Earth in his paper. However the credit was still generally given to him instead."

Wikipedia cites http://www.webcitation.org/5o0fZYSgo as source. Did we do enough of your homework for you?

Cosmos

[ceoyoyo]

This was the subject of an episode of the Neil deGrasse Tyson Cosmos. The summary is pretty sensationalistic too. Hertzsprung discouraged his student from publishing because he thought she was wrong. When she was persistent and turned out to be right, they published. Professors always get the credit for what their students do.

Also, what is "combining those protons in a chain"?

Re:Cosmos

[ceoyoyo]

That's actually a bit of a problem. There are lots of stories about how women get screwed over for credit for scientific discoveries. They do, of course, but so do male students. So did whoever figured out the tungsten light bulb filament in Edison's lab, the guy who came up with the rounded corners on the iPhone, and the intern who actually put together that proposal your boss presented last week.

When you look into this particular case a bit, it seems like Russell actually acted pretty well.

Young Marsden Aaaward

[VAXcat]

HA! This reminds me of my days at Rice University, in the early 70s. The Post grad students there each year would award one of their number the "Young Marsden" award. It was presented to the student whose work had been most egregiously ripped off by a faculty member that year. It was called the Young Marsden award, in memory of Marsden, since Rutherford and Geiger got credit for his work on alpha particle scattering

Re:footnote, not headline

[ClickOnThis]

he completely stole the work from a woman you never heard of: his student, Cecilia Payne,

He didn't "steal" it, and she wasn't his student.

Cecilia Payne's dissertation originally concluded that stars (particularly our Sun) were composed primarily of ionized hydrogen and helium, with smaller amounts of other elements, mostly metals. Russel reviewed her dissertation, and dissuaded her from presenting that conclusion, because the common wisdom at the time was that the Sun was made of the same stuff as the Earth, but heated to incandescence.

Later, Russel realized that Payne was right, and gave her brief credit in one of his papers for the idea. Unfortunately the idea was still attributed to Russel for a long time. Payne did get the recognition she deserved, albeit belatedly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

The Facts Don't Matter Because "Narrative"

[Kunedog]

I know how it sounds to complain that your one submission (out of the many /. receives) didn't get accepted, but I've tried submitting this recent scientific discovery (published in Nature Chemistry) a few times. IMO it's perfect material for Slashdot: a interesting new hypothesis (about a supposedly "well-understood" reaction) put to the test via regularly evolving experiments and apparatuses. And it was even largely funded through Youtube viewers (who the lead scientist thanks in the paper) and documented with (at least one) well-done video.

But /. never ran it. I can't help but think that part of the problem is that the scientist is Dr. Phil Mason, aka thunderf00t, who is known for his vids that expose Atheism+ and anti-Gamergate types as fools. Think about the lousy submissions that do often make it on the front page, especially those that push an agenda.

This is why things like Gamergate (and Slashdot's atrocious coverage of it) matter, even if you yourself don't personally care about videogames; it is a fight against neo-puritans who want to filter ALL types of content (not just games, comics, music, movies, etc) you're allowed to see, and refuse to acknowledge the work of those who don't buy into the "narrative."

P.S. Clearly I'm biased, so if any of you think that my article submission is unworthy for some other reason, let me know (seriously).

Re:The Facts Don't Matter Because "Narrative"

[Brulath]

...his vids that expose...

It is often extremely difficult to find a perfect example of something when trying to explain it, so many of the materials people use when trying to make a larger point have flaws and can be nitpicked pretty easily. Any sufficiently complicated argument suffers from this when you attempt to compress it into a smaller time-scale, making it easy to overlook the 'bigger picture' and be offended by the examples presented. How do you distil the years of experiences and biases which have lead you to a particular argument in an objective manner in a short presentation without exposing yourself to seriously flawed examples, regardless of the topic? Try convincing a religious person why they should abandon their religion in 20 minutes without presenting examples that can be nitpicked; it's pretty difficult, because the topic is quite complex when you drill down into it (even though it seems pretty simple, it really requires analysing why they believe first).

I read somewhere that the best way to respond to an argument is to re-state your opponent's argument, as you understand it and in the best possible light, comment on and discuss the parts you agreed with or liked, and then present the pieces you disagree with. *some searching later* turns out it was Daniel Dennett, here: http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules-criticism/.

How to compose a successful critical commentary:

1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.
2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

Turns out I forgot the learned bit. The reason I'm replying is because I don't think the video creator you mentioned prescribes to a method of arguing which is useful for much beyond entertainment for those who already agree, whatever the subject under discussion. Which is partly the fault of the format – it's much faster and easier to make a dissection-style video that is short and matches your preconceived viewpoint than it is to do the above – but that's not really an excuse for intellectual laziness in the end.

Note that I'm not saying his opponents are correct – some use the same approach as he does and fail for the same reasons. I'm pointing out that his videos don't prescribe to any form of argument which could be used to convince a person to change their mind. He does not expose anyone, because the people who watch them already agree. The best that most short youtube arguments aspire to is entertainment.

Re:Out of respect for Dice's agenda, let me ask...

[Tuidjy]

I think that SJW is a quite appropriate subject to bring when talking about this article.

Let me list a few ways in which just the summary is wrong, deliberately twisting the truth so that SJW can get their righteous anger on.

o Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin is not someone I have not heard of. She was a professor at Harvard, a department chair, and hers is a name that you are very likely to hear even if you have just taken classes there.
o Her credit was not stolen. The man who dissuaded her from publishing part of her theory thought that the claim, unsupported, would expose her to ridicule. He did not do it to steal the credit - once he actually proved the claim, he gave her credit in the paper, and actually admitted there, without having to, that he was originally wrong.

And seriously, do we have to twist the facts to make things more interesting? There are enough wrongs to get angry about, and every time lies that are meant to inflame are discovered, assholes get to cast doubt on other, true injustices.

Re:Bad advice right from the start!

[Anne Thwacks]

If you are going to look directly into Wikipedia, the Academy of Science recommends you hold a piece of cardboard over your eyes to avoid brain damage.

Re:this is familiar

[ColdWetDog]

That's hertory! There's no fucking "s" after you remove "his"!

After you remove 'him' there is no fucking, period.