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'Science Must Clean Up Its Act' (scientificamerican.com)
Our science community still struggles with diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, including systemic bias, harassment, and discrimination among other things, writes Heather Metcalf, mathematician, computer scientist, social scientist, and also the director of research for the Association for Women in Science. From her piece, in which she has shared both personal anecdotes and general examples, for the Scientific American: [...] Take the recent March for Science. Nearly two weeks ago, scientists and science supporters gathered in Washington, D.C, and around the globe to stand up for "robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity" and put forth a vision of science that "serves the interests of all humans, not just those in power." However, in its attempts to remain apolitical and objective, the march focused primarily on funding and communication aspects of its mission while losing sight of the need for a science that addresses human freedom and prosperity for all, not just the privileged. [...] In the early days of its organizing, the march offered up a strong statement of solidarity acknowledging the complacency with which the scientific community as a whole has handled issues that primarily impact marginalized communities: "many issues about which scientists as a group have largely remained silent -- attacks on black and brown lives, oil pipelines through indigenous lands, sexual harassment and assault, ADA access in our communities, immigration policy, lack of clean water in several cities across the country, poverty wages, LGBTQIA rights, and mass shootings are scientific issues. Science has historically -- and generally continues to support discrimination. In order to move forward as a scientific community, we must address and actively work to unlearn our problematic past and present, to make science available to everyone." This messaging was removed and replaced after much pushback, largely from white men, about the need to remain apolitical and objective. These debates resulted in many women, people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ scientists, and their allies feeling ostracized and even receiving disrespectful and hateful messages about their place in science generally and in M4S specifically. Rather than standing up for a science that is available to everyone, these conversations and the march itself merely served represent an exclusionary science by reinforcing longstanding, divisive norms within the scientific community, all in the name of objectivity..
A dog-whistle for "funded by taxes"...
Because some people's jobs are too important to be paid for voluntarily, by the willing people desiring the fruits of their labors.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This is just a rant/op-ed.....at best
There's more signalling going on in this one summary than every stoplight in Manhattan.
An interesting hypothesis. Has it been put to the test?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Science is facing a raft of politically-motivated studies, rigged or suppressed medical trials, false or irreproducible results are rampant. But the big problem is "lack of diversity"??
I would think if you demanded rigor and accountability for the actual science part of the job, you wouldn't have to worry too much about who was doing the work.
Of all the places SJW types should stay the hell out of, aside from politics, its science.
The article has such a focus on race and other "ism" bent agendas that it pointed out the exact reason why it wasn't valid. SCIENCE doesn't care. It is a process, not an agenda. Trying to bend science to a liberal agenda is just as bad as it being bent to a political power elite agenda.
Dumb, dumb, dumb...
I've long held that the scientific community needs to take better care of its equipment. Running multiple experiments with unclean equipment will just lead to shoddy science! Controversial, I know, but there you have it!
I agree with the article that women would be great for these positions and would, in fact, clean up science's act. More power to'em!
In the three months leading up to the March for Science and in the days since, many in the scientific community engaged in heated debates about how political science and the march should be, especially around social justice issues. In the early days of its organizing, the march offered up a strong statement of solidarity acknowledging the complacency with which the scientific community as a whole has handled issues that primarily impact marginalized communities: “many issues about which scientists as a group have largely remained silent—attacks on black & brown lives, oil pipelines through indigenous lands, sexual harassment and assault, ADA access in our communities, immigration policy, lack of clean water in several cities across the country, poverty wages, LGBTQIA rights, and mass shootings are scientific issues. Science has historically—and generally continues to support discrimination. In order to move forward as a scientific community, we must address and actively work to unlearn our problematic past and present, to make science available to everyone.”
(Facepalm) I can't think of the words to describe how disgusting this is that some group of people would mix science and politics. The only point at which science might mix with politics is if politics is in opposition to science for political reasons. But this is different. This is pulling political issues into the scientific realm and that's just absolutely absurd and discredits science. NO NO NO. LGBT rights have NOTHING to do with science. Mass shootings have nothing to do with science. There is a reason why scientists are usually not politicians and vice versa.
We'll make great pets
I've read the article twice, but I still think I'm reading it wrong. Does he say that science should be more objective and apolitical, then complain that it is object and apolitical?
Life is too short and too important to { take seriously | use windows }.
Whiny social justice warrior demands science be primarily a political tool for her pet causes, complains more when told science is supposed to be apolitical about facts and reproducible experiments - and can't resist implying that those things are bad because she was told so by scary 'old white men'.
Maybe Heather Metcalf should shut the hell up and spend some time thinking about why the 'old white men' are right and she's a complete idiot. Scientific American does itself a disservice by letting her post this crap under their banner, blog page or not.
Any issue you may see with the sex ratio of scientists or treatment scientists tend to receive based on sex or gender, whether they're famous or toiling in obscurity, or sex or gender issues in the community at large... has nothing to do with whether or not science should a political arena. It should not. Science seeks facts and understanding, what we do with that is the arena of politics.
Science must stop being science (the putting aside of bias for the goal of finding truth), and instead _become_ bias, to support the 'true' goal of science...
I'm more interested in how the author's going to relate unclean water, poverty wages, LGBTwhatever "rights" etc to pushing for the progress of *science*. Science exists to answer questions, it's not about social morality, unless you're into sociology or related fields. I'd rather see some hard-core science being funded than any "science" funds diverted to social funds. There's other avenues for that, and science itself as a field shouldn't need to worry about it. As for the M4S, you don't want to distract from the primary purpose, which, amazingly, isn't a statement about social conditions but rather about a dedication to science. Any "backlash" the author thinks they see is merely a refusal to dilute the message and we should applaud the M4S for not diluting their message.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Wow. In general, I am sympathetic to the goals (although not always the rhetoric) of "social justice warriors"-- social justice is, in fact, something we should strive for, and I'm in favor of that part of the pledge of allegiance saying "with liberty and justice for all" as a goal that we should aim for, even if somethings we fall short of the mark.
But this article is just wacky. “many issues about which scientists as a group have largely remained silent—attacks on black & brown lives, oil pipelines through indigenous lands, sexual harassment and assault, ADA access in our communities, immigration policy, lack of clean water in several cities across the country, poverty wages, LGBTQIA rights, and mass shootings are scientific issues."
No, actually most of these just aren't "scientific issues". Scientists, of course, can and even should have opinions on these subjects, but, really, these aren't scientific issues-- these are social issues.
If these issues were left out of the march for science, there's a good reason: they didn't belong there. They are issues needing a consensus by society as a whole.
Rags like Scientific American and National Geographic have over the past few years lost the reason people loved them - because they were objective, and 'above the fray,' and have instead become political mouthpieces... In the early twentieth century the Editor of National Geographic declared that his magazine would be 'apolitical' and apart from momentary bias -- but in the last few years that principle has been ditched, due to so many reporter types going through a lengthy indoctrination process that puts politics above truth..
I can't be the only one extremely disappointed with this article.
The subject "Science Needs to Clean Up Its Act" was so promising - and then its about how the scientific community needs to be more PC - more diversified - more accepting of participating in peoples' personal self-image and validating them - less harassment.
Science *does* need to clean up its act. It needs to harass scientists who publish nonsense that can't be replicated. It needs to purge administrative non-sense that clouds the pursuit of truth. It needs to blacklist scientists who publish fraud, and those who use fake contact information to peer-review their own research.
Instead of trying to broaden scientific pursuit to LGBTXYZ by making scientists acknowledge their white cis privilege and beg forgiveness, science needs to bleach its festering sores clean of festering disease, clinically diagnose and treat the cancerous tumors in its ranks, and make science EQUALLY appealing to everyone of any sex, race, creed, or religion who wants to pursue scientific achievement absent this horrific PC attitude.
...have nothing to do with science. They have everything to do with the politicization of science, which turns science into something else.
Science: Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
Special interest groups: Yeah but woman and minorities and not white men and political correctness, how are you supporting that?
Science: Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
Special interest groups: Yeah I don't see how you're supporting our agenda on equal rights for human behavior etc.
Science: Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
Special interest groups: Science is discriminating against us! Down with "their" science.
Science should be about reproduceable results. Not the agenda of the "scientists".
Corporatism != Free Market
The problem you see is that women have had equality of opportunity for decades, and have yet to reach parity by the metrics feminism chooses to measure (basically fraction of cushier highly paid positions held by women.) Any suggestion that this is due to the choices women make and / or natural aptitude is about 15 types is *ism and makes you literally Hitler. Thus the solution wasn't to give women the same opportunities, but to demand equality of outcome (or "equity") because god forbid being an overweight women with one leg should preclude you from winning an Olympic gold in the Men's 100 meters
I've been having fun the past few months. Since when did LGBT become LGBTQ? And LGBTQI? And now LGBTQIA?
It's like this thing gets a new letter every couple of months. Is that some kind of trend?
She seems to be this one:
http://arizona.academia.edu/HeatherMetcalf
But she's not what she claims, she's a curtural studies not "mathematician, computer scientist, social scientist", well perhaps the last one.
Science is a process. It is a pear-reviewed process. It does not care who does or not does it.
Scientists OTOH are people and that means they can decide if they want to be assholes or not. That is greatly a political discussion.
Just as we should not mix religion with politics, we should not mix science with politics.
Now if you want to do a scientific investigation about scientists, please go ahead and give ne some science with proof as to why changing things would be better, because for all I know it could be worse, because the LQJYGDXWY are less established or in the long term they
That could also be completely wrong and for that you have science to bring proof.
Please do not mix up Science with Scientists.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If you try to give everyone equal chances, independent of their race, gender, sexual preference, planet of origin, you name it, you'll have no bigger supporter than me.
If you want to enforce quotas for equal number of $identification_attribute, independent of their ability to perform whatever has to be done, you'll have no bigger enemy.
Science is not a publicity contest. What it comes down to is whether someone can do it or can't do it. Hey, thinking about it, that's how it is in all fields. And I cannot pull some dead weight because we have to have what has already been named, and pardon the slur, the "quota ni...". That word is already a reality. Along with the "quota bit..".
Is that the environment you want to create? Imagine you're black, female, gay, pick your preferred disadvantaged group. And you study. Hard. And uphill all the way because you have to fight against university profs who still think that women can't do math and blacks shouldn't try to understand literature, and foreigners doubly so (how would they understand the finer nuances of the language?). But you're good, you're a bright person and you actually manage to get your degree. Against all odds. And without playing the race or gender card. Because you're fucking GOOD at what you do!
And then you get into an office and even if you never get to hear it, you get to feel it: You're the quota ni.. Or the quota bit.. Because that's why blacks and women are hired, to fill the damn quota.
How'd you like that? How'd you feel being hired on a H1B because you're actually good at what you're doing, only to be treated as second class because ... hey, H1Bs are for cheap Indians stealing our jobs.
Please don't go down that road. It's already hard enough for underprivileged people to get into science, please don't take it away from those that actually manage to get shit done! If you want equality to not just be a token but actually arrive in the heads of people, you have to give them credit. And that pretty much requires that they're not seen as some kind of cripples that need handouts.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This messaging was removed and replaced after much pushback, largely from white men, about the need to remain apolitical and objective....
So it's mainly white men who want science to remain scientific, while rejecting the push to make science political; by implication, it's mainly non-white, non-men that want to politicize science.
It is the white men that are showing wisdom that appears to be severely lacking in the other groups. It is not the place of science to push for any social policy. It is the place of science to predict and/or show the results of various social policies (to the extent that science is even capable of doing so). It is then the place of politics to decide which social policy to pursue, using (presumably) the apolitical objective data.
Good science is bound by facts, not emotion.
I especially like the part where the pushback was "largely from white men", meaning that it can be safely ignored because their input doesn't count.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
mass shootings are scientific issues.
No. No. No. NO. NO NO!!!! Studies can tell you the chances of being killed by a gun or how common it is in different parts of the world or what changes with mental health or just generally give you a picture of what particular laws have in effect. That does not tell you anything else!
It doesn't tell you what to do if people view those dangers worth it. It doesn't tell you if owning a gun should be a right or not. It doesn't tell you what it means to have a right of self defense. It doesn't tell you what happens when there is a complicit government. It doesn't tell you the history why these perceptions have been built up in a society. It doesn't tell you anything important aside from a one dimensional picture. The most important parts of the gun debate is not found in any study because it is something that cannot be quantified.
There is no experiment to be had. There is no prediction to make. There is nothing except opinions! We can inform those opinions with facts but even then that will not necessarily change attitudes because there are underlying philosophical, ethical, government responsibility, and liberty concerns. Science can't answer those questions. At best it can help you gather the facts to help inform your opinion.
Sure this post is absurd, for SJW types once again trying to turn Science (in its purest form, where people work to minimize their own bias to determine what is abstractly true) into something that fits their political dogma.. However, consider this -- this same madness has swept other industries -- is there any sympathy for them, or are they undeserving of abstract thought? Do engineering, programming, architecture, farming, building, etc etc have to sacrifice their pure goals for the political dogma, with only science being above the fray?
This is just another example of SJWs infiltrating and co-opting a functioning and useful group of people, driving in artificial wedges, disrupting and diluting focus, and ultimately destroying the group from within. They are inherently anti-science parasites. Openly mock them where ever you find them.
Scientific American is Liberal in nature and about as closed minded and one sided as it gets. It is no longer a tome of science but a tool for the Left and only the left.
Take Gender Dysphoria as an example. It is roughly just a mental state where one feels that one's secondary sexual characteristics don't conform to one's feelings about which gender you are. It is essentially a mental illness. That's all it really is. Does anyone seriously think she's going to support Science when the evidence says that it's a mental illness, not just an opinion? Unlikely...
This is politics, plain and simple. Once you understand that, everything is easier to understand. There is no political push for real, objective science because the cold truths about the universe would "trigger" every political faction in modern politics at some point, everywhere from Communists, to anarchists and in between.
the need for a science that addresses human freedom and prosperity for all, not just the privileged.
I'm hitting that point where "the privleged" is just an overused buzzword.
"many issues about which scientists as a group have largely remained silent --
. . . ADA access isn't really a scientific issue. It's political. And one that has largely been won in support for the disabled. ADA compliance is pretty damn strict and if anyone finds non-compliance they can sue for thousands to millions. It's a settled issue.
Clean water is likewise pretty settled. We need it. The issues in Michigan are economic ones. The science is pretty clear: Lead fucks you up.
LGBBQWTF rights are most certainly a political issue, not a scientific one. Figuring out if furries are born with it or have been brainwashed by cartoons is a question for science. What to do about it is a matter of politics.
And that's the crux here. Science INFORMS and GUIDES policy. Science doesn't say SQUAT about what to do with immigrants. It can cut through the lies and bullshit and point out the facts and truth of the matter... but not what we ought to do about it. Now, obviously if a proposed solution or policy is argued on points that are simply shown to be false thanks to scientific research, then that's a bad policy. But if you go to sociology 101, chapter 7 isn't "how to fix race issues".
Science has historically -- and generally continues to support discrimination.
WHOA there. Whoa. If science supports discrimination, then you've suggested we ought to discriminate. You got the priority of these two issues backwards. If the science says it's true, it doesn't matter if it's unpleasent.
pushback, largely from white men,
Way to be sexist and racist about it.
all in the name of objectivity.
. . . YES. If science and scientists can't remain objective and allow bias to taint the results then the science is BAD. And that will cause everyone to discard your findings.
The replication crisis is present in every field. Publish or perish creates fucked up incentives that guarantee shit science.
Whatever this bint is whining about is not a real problem, at least not at the importance and scale that she claims it is. If she wanted people to take systemic bias seriously, she should clean her own house first. The social sciences are little more than rationalization factories for fringe political ideologies. If you didn't talk like an activist zealot, maybe you would have some credibility, and people wouldn't balk at being associated with you.
Of course, for these activists, that is a feature, not a bug. They claim to speak for all women and minorities, people want nothing to do with them, they then use that as evidence that people want nothing to do with all women and minorities. It's a self-perpetuating, self-aggrandizing delusion.
..diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, including systemic bias, harassment, and discrimination..
These are not 'science community' issues; they are HUMAN RACE issues. This crap goes on all over the world, to varying degrees, in all areas of our so-called 'civilization', and they won't be solved through legislation (laws and regulations just drive attitudes underground) or much through discussion (ironically, it all gets paid 'lip service' and nothing really gets done). These issues will either be solved by humans evolving away from it all -- or it won't. Meanwhile it's all a continual struggle that apparently doesn't move the needle much one way or another, merely wasting time and energy, fighting amongst ourselves.
In contrast to my own opinion I still feel the human race is capable of evolving beyond this and all the other crap we perpetrate upon ourselves. The real question is whether we have enough time for that to happen.
The reason is simply that the high paying jobs are rigged in such a way that only men want to do them. So we have to create new C-Level positions that favor women!
Think I'm kidding? Think nobody would demand that?
Just wait 'til the first "gender studies" majors graduate and notice that the best they could hope for with a degree in gender studies is a job that includes the phrase "you want fries with that".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is what "science" has devolved into. When does the madness end?
We seem to be seeing Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy everywhere these days.
Although I do agree with the headline, just not in the way that Sci-Am intended.
Some socially valuable things aren't profitable
Name one. All things are potentially profitable. There is a thriving private space industry now when it was claimed only governments could really explore space...
Also another side question, what does "socially valuable" have to do with science anyway? I think there is the root of your problem, and the problem of the current scientific community. Science is about building tools and fostering an understanding of an issue, without judgment or preconception. In that regard modern "science" is often anything but.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...and at worst it is guilty of what it sets out to campaign against because it dismisses the idea that scientists should "remain apolitical and objective" as coming from "white men". This a violation of the basic rule of science that you consider ideas on their merits not based on who said them. Ironically it is also a textbook example of racism and sexism because it suggests we value an idea less because of the race and gender of the people suggesting it.
Her willingness to put her own personal beliefs before scientific values shows a complete lack of objectivity, This, together with her openly racist and sexist rant, does suggest that she might actually have a point though. This sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable for someone calling themselves a scientist and so if science is going to clean up its act giving her an education in basic scientific principles would be a good place to start.
Is it in a tobacco company's interest to pay for all of the facts of the research that merely correlates cancer with smoking
No - but it is in an *insurance companies* interest to know that. There is always some party who gains benefit from knowing the truth.
What's wrong with cases favouring *robustly funded* science?
As always, the certainly of graft, corruption, and the pushing to the side of REAL science in the rush to prove some assertion is true regardless of facts.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Scientists have scientific results and publish them; if you check Metcalf's scientific publication record, it's pretty much non-existent.
Science should "clean up its act" by making it clear that people like that are not scientists, don't speak for scientists, and aren't welcome in the scientific community.
She's the new Sandra Fluke.
The first sentence really strikes a chord with me: Our science community still struggles with diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, including systemic bias, harassment, and discrimination among other things.
The thing I notice when I head into my office everyday is the huge imbalance of gender in my colleagues. Almost all of them are white or Asian males, like myself. I think this is a problem which is worth addressing. In a lot of ways, Science (and related TEM) has been the envy of other fields of study for the rapid amount of progress that we've made in the last century. The way that we conduct science, for the most part, produces novel and exciting results that shape the human experience. I don't think that we should change the way we objectively try to reach our goal of better modelling the world around us.
But we're behind fields in other ways. Other fields have made leaps and bounds in workforce diversity that we've really struggled at. Perhaps science isn't best equipped to understand why we've failed to make this jump, but it's troubling that to me, as a scientist,that we're so behind the curve here. I encourage you to take a moment to read through the below comment thread, and you'll get the feeling that there are a bunch of sciencey-folks whose beef with this article whose best argument is that Metcalf's article uses "science" and "people who do science" interchangeably. Yeah, science may be "unbiased" by definition, but Metcalf's point is that we, as people, let our biases in and are changing the way that science is done. The comment thread reads more like an attack on those trying to bring diversity to science than an actual critique of the article-- but maybe I shouldn't have expected any better of slashdot.
There are points of Dr. Metcalf's argument that I disagree with, but I also would never claim to be qualified to assess this article. Equality and the politics of science are something that I think about in my free time-- the author holds a doctorate in these subjects, and I'm sure if I spent an office hour talking to Dr. Metcalf, I would probably be convinced of their argument. This person has seriously thought about these, and granted this is an article for general audiences. Perhaps slashdot would be rather enjoy some of her research? https://www.researchgate.net/p...
To end with another line that resonates with me from this article:
"Regardless of whether our work is scientific, being objective, then, does not and cannot mean ignoring our biases, assumptions, or background beliefs"
Every time, really? Are you subscribed to any science channels on YouTube?
Or maybe it's the other way around: when you come across talking about "women in science or technology", the speaker is a woman.
The inability to come up with a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement is what separates astrology, social "science" and "climate science" from astronomy, biology and meteorology.
Whenever we want to start the science game we need:
1) a list of observations, if observed, would prove our hypothesis false;
2) an argument that the lack of those observations excludes all other explanations other than our own (including the null).
Ignoring this cornerstone of the scientific method leads to scientism, rather than science.
Unscientific, anti-American, and now idiotarian, a once great publication kicks in the afterburners in it's race to the bottom.
This is what going "full retard" looks like in print.
Cause: God and 6 days of work, one day of rest
Effect: The universe
Science, you say?
Oddly enough, a lot of women have told the corporations to fuck off and strike out on their own. This is true even among the women that want to be part of the Cx0 class.
This makes a certain amount of sense if you think about it. Gender doesn't even have to enter into it. Who really wants to be someone else's gimp? What's the point of having all of the talent and necessary abilities if you're just going to work for someone else.
It's closer to the capitalist ideal that women are NOT trying to just manage someone else's mega corp.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Now the trolls write articles and slashdot links to them.
Because departments run by LGBTQ and similarly "disadvantaged" people produce such high levels of scholarship:
http://www.skeptic.com/reading...
That white men should just quit- just get out of the way of people of color, whom they are repressing :
http://www.dailywire.com/news/...
Look in a money and resource limited environment, we have to make hard decisions about what and who is important and what and who is not:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Because feminists have sooo much to offer science, so much keen insight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
That it would be a pity to let the entire social justice left be excluded merely on the basis of their inability, their differently abledness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Like the Revivvalism of the turn of the century and Scientology today, social justice is a literal cult. Unfortunately it's a cult that threatens the rational and scientific basis of Western civilization and if left unchecked, which it largely has been, will reduce the West to Feminist Lysenkoism and a and ethnic and gender-based totalitarianism.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/...
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/L...
The time for passivity and tolerance in the face of civilization-deconstructing psychosis is past. It's civilization or it's the race hatred, gender-cidal cult of social justice. It won't be both. I know I have re-engineered my career to effect the total, permanent and irreversible extermination of this disease and I enjoin anyone of good will- man woman white black brown gay or straight- to join me.
Equal opportunity, not equal outcome.
This is a key that is so often overlooked.
The article is right about several things. There are abuses, there is discrimination, and there is harassment. Those absolutely should be identified and eliminated.
However, we are talking about humans who have actual preferences. Even if opportunities are equal, people have preferences. When offered a formal dinner with plate choices of Steak, Fish, and Veggie entrees, the general popularity for steak isn't because of a "bias in the system".
Nobody seems to care that 99.6% of drywall installers are male, there aren't documentaries about how the drywall installation business is biased against women, or research how women have no chance to succeed in their drywall career. Same thing about 99.9% of bricklayers and stonemasons are male. There is a little discussion about how 99.5% of firefighters are male, there are a few more women in the ranks, but generally people accept that these are going to be male-dominated fields.
Similarly, there isn't much anger about how 91.1% of registered nurses are female, no outcry about how men don't want to be nurses. In fact it is the opposite, I know a few men who are nurses at a nearby hospital, and they talk about discrimination and bias the opposite way, against the males. Where is the outcry that 94.1% of childcare workers are women? Instead the outcry is about how men getting into child care must be quietly pedophiles and are potential rapists. Just like above, people accept that these are currently female-dominated fields. (150 years ago nursing was male dominated, but it shifted during the big wars a century ago. Shifts happen.)
Even though it is gender biased, computer programmers have been gradually drifting away from male dominated fields, from about 91% in 2007 down to about 82% today based on US DoL statistics. Some schools even report equalization of women to men graduating in CS and engineering, and a small number have seen it cross over completely with more women graduating than men.
The article includes discussion of LGBQ groups. The groups make up about 3.5% of Americans so it shouldn't be any surprise that they make up a tiny minority of scientists. The group makes up a tiny percent of the general population, so it would be quite surprising indeed if they were clustered into a specific career field.
So yes, I agree in general with the article that abuses, discrimination, and harassment need to be addressed. But like the grandparent post mentions, equal opportunity doesn't mean equal outcome. Some careers are more attractive to different genders, hence the male bricklayers and female childcare workers. Many science fields seem to be more attractive to certain groups and not to others, that is not inherently a problem.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Stop offering opinions on Politics, Economics, and Religion and STOP issuing doomsday statements in an attempt to garner attention. If you're wrong, which inevitably we are often slightly mistaken, 100% of your research will be thrown out for one bad fact.
Example: It's impossible to even have a rational discussion about global warming anymore.
Really? How about not making up new crappy catch-all strange things one can think of and adding it to something else in order to "gain" support for whatever you just added? Because LGBT are already a description that cover it all when it comes to sexual identity. Adding anything more is going from a technical description to a social description (behavior etc.).
...but don't belong in every discussion.
in its attempts to remain apolitical and objective, the march focused primarily on funding and communication aspects of its mission
..., thereby succeeding in its goals to remain apolitical and objective.
There is plenty to support in "social justice," but injecting it into every discussion regardless of scope is dumb. And for a self-styled scientist to do so brings into doubt their credibility as a scientist. A current pet peeve is claims that diverse groups are necessarily better, for example this one . The danger of this over-enthusiastic embrace of affirmative action is the contrapositive--if diverse teams are better/smarter/Xer, then less diverse teams are necessarily less good/smart/X. If that were true, then I can say that whites/males/{over-represented group of choice} are either demonstrably less X as individuals, or that they are demonstrably less capable of having team interactions that lead to better X. Once that door is open to racial/gender/etc discrimination, the barrel can be turned right back onto the very groups that were hoping to benefit from greater diversity.
Not to mention the poor sampling of diversity dimensions. Gender and race have some representation in the diversity debate, but what about LGBTQ? Geographic? Philosophical? Political?
Affirmative action is a defensible temporary policy to correct certain historical discriminations, given the intensity and horror of them. But when it becomes unquestioned policy applied across the board, it is an outright danger to the very things it attempts to fix.
... and yet she didn't publish anything impactful in any of these disciplines. Ah, the Dunning-Krueger effect.
attacks on black and brown lives, oil pipelines through indigenous lands, sexual harassment and assault, ADA access in our communities, immigration policy, lack of clean water in several cities across the country, poverty wages, LGBTQIA rights, and mass shootings are scientific issues
Do you want "anti-science" policies? Because that's how you get them.
Those are not scientific issues. If being against idiots who think those are scientific issues gets me labeled as "anti-science", then I'll proudly wear that label.
We need to extricate politics from science, and the loudest of the "pro science" self-labeled group is doing the opposite.
The summary claims the following as 'scientific issues', when in reality they are not:
attacks on black and brown lives - Nope
oil pipelines through indigenous lands - You could maybe make the case that science needs to address the safety of pipelines and their possible effects, but I have no idea why it should only include 'indigenous lands', as if non-native people enjoy oil in their drinking water.
sexual harassment and assault - Nope
ADA access in our communities - Nope
immigration policy -Nope. I can't even believe that they tried to pretend that this has anything to do with science
lack of clean water in several cities across the country - Nope. Science has already determined that we need clean water, and how to go about that. It's up to idiot politicians to make sure this happens.
poverty wages - Nope
LGBTQIA rights - Nope. And I swear to God, if they add one more letter to this damn thing, I'm going to turn anti-LGBTQIAQWERTY just out of spite.
and mass shootings - Nope
These things are important to address, but there is no need to force the scientific community to push these issues. In fact, doing so may have the unintended consequence of making the public believe that the scientific community has a political agenda. This could make the public question the findings of the scientist.
"Oh, sure, OF COURSE those pesky scientist have 'determined' that mass immigration and amnesty is a net gain for the country. They publicly stated long that they were in favor of these things. What a SURPRISE that their 'research' matched what they already believed."
As a small and personal example, as a computer science master’s student, on multiple and separate occasions, other students told me I was only admitted into the program because of Affirmative Action
Ok, you don't like being stereotyped as a woman. Got it. But then...
This messaging (regarding social issues) was removed and replaced after much pushback, largely from white men,
But it's Ok to sterotype men and whites. Because CLEARLY the only reason that they could have removed the social & political messages from the platform were because they hate women and minorities.
Yeah, sorry, not sorry. Science is a meritocracy. The biggest show of diversity of cultures, looks and opinions that I've seen was when I was in grad school (not all that long ago). And yet people rose up or fell out based on their ability to produce results. Scientific establishment has a number of problems with its methods. Keeping people out based on their immutable characteristics is not one of them. If the result is a population less diverse than the general population, then it's cause is 100% without-a-doubt not prejudice. It's not that glamorous a life, btw. So it could simply be lack of interest.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Science does not discriminates, and "positive" discrimination hinders science.
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
Dr Piper Harron, writing on the AMS "Inclusion/Exclusion" blog, informs us:
"If you are a white cis man you almost certainly should resign from your position of power."
A reply from an anonymous University mathematician serves equally well as a reply to Dr Heather Metcalf.
"We are all painfully aware of the inequalities in faculty composition and trying hard to fix it. *Every* math department I know of is trying really hard to hire every qualified minority and female applicant out there (and by qualified I mean: a *very* generous ballpark within the hiring range of each department). The real problem is that there are not enough such candidates, and most departments end up making offers to the same few that are available in the market each year. By the way, our departments are aware of the problem, and so are our Deans and higher administration. In my experience, they are all very supportive of us hiring under-represented minorities, even offering additional positions when such opportunities occur, *as long as we conform with the laws*, and as long as the hire is within the 'generous ballpark'."
In other words, departments are willing to lower the standards for minority and female candidates, by a "*very* generous ballpark", with the consent of the University administration; but they are still unable to find sufficient candidates.
It is no wonder that there is "pushback" from white men; or that women and minorities are treated with suspicion as having benefitted from "affirmative action".
"You need to redirect money to my social 'science' projects, or you hate women and poor people."
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Now Science is infected with this cancer. We're done.
Stop telling science what is has to do! This new Alt-Left thinks they are always in the right, that they should be the moral compass of mankind, but well, they are just a bunch of loonies not unlike their Alt-Right antagonists.
Science is not your political tool nor your trowing stone, when you bring political motivation into science it stops being science, just look at eugenics.
Let science be science and stop trying to force us to put you, the alt-Left loonies in your self appointed moral pedestal... nobody out of your circle jerk actually believes you are entitled to it.
The problem isn't society's command of "science;" It is society's command of logic. You have people on all sides of an argument relying on the fallacy of "appeal to authority" to make a case: "Well scientists say ...."
ESPN subscriber count
* Sep 2010 100 million
* Sep 2011 99 million
* Sep 2012 98 million
* Sep 2013 99 million
* Sep 2014 95 million
* Sep 2015 92 million
* Sep 2016 90 million
* Feb 2017 88 million
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Well, one thing Heather Metcalf has managed to accomplish is to conclusively prove why nobody reads Scientific American as a science publication any more.
-Styopa
This is a big reason climate change science has so much pushback. Instead of being just science, it has aligned itself with a particular political leaning.
Yes, I agree with bondsbw-- you have this backwards. Climate science didn't "align itself with a particular political leaning". It's exactly the reverse: a particular political leaning aligned itself with climate science.
And, more notably, a particular political leaning aligned itself against climate science.
The overall conclusions of climate science have been known since way before the issue got politicized. The science hasn't changed-- it's gotten more detailed, but it hasn't changed. (That's the way science usually works: first the broad principles are understood, and then more and more details are filled in.) The science would be the same if the opposite political polarities had decided to be for and against it.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Not 100%, but likely the most meritocratic part of society by far. That also means those that have what it takes can get a second and even third chance. There is no "act" to "clean up". Those that fail do lack what it takes and need to fail in order to keep science effective. This is not some social club where merit does not matter. This is the future of humankind.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I agree with this. These blogpages just taint the main brand with low-quality content so that the name becomes meaningless. Just look at Forbes, does their magazine have any credibility anymore? If I see a story attributed to Forbes I just skip it, as I assume it's low-quality blog posting.
This rant does make me feel better about the science march, however, I'm glad that they remained apolitical enough to receive hate from both ends of the spectrum.
Meanwhile everyone else opted to evolve into somekind of a mouse, and that strikes me oddly as how the Xhristian and Jewish religions cant quite decide if the baby Dgjeshush was an animal (Lamb), or a Goat (Hindu brahman), a worm (Psalm22), a man, or God in the flesh only looking like a man.
Actually, he was one of the Engineers (though perhaps altered so he wasn't 10 feet tall). Humans didn't treat him too well, so they decided their creation was a failure and devised a plague to cleanse the planet of humans, but unfortunately, something went awry and the ship with this plague never left the planet it was developed on. In the future, a ship funded by the Weyland-Yutani corporation will find it...
SJWs have a tendency of infiltrating a community and then suddenly pointing out to everyone how bad the community is, often making wild claims of a completely inappropriate environment.
While the concepts of the normal left are quite fine (equality is not a bad thing) the methodology and the levels of what triggers the extreme left is utterly insane, as usual.
These people have become a laughing stock across the internet and are slowly losing respect. This is a good thing, we may see a resurgence of common sense soon at this rate.
> Science has historically -- and generally continues....
A claim, without any reference containing an indication that science is really anyhow more problematic than the rest of the world.
In my vie the contrary is true - at least in mathematics and physics, in my experience nobody gives a shit about how you live your live personally.
Armed forces
Libraries
Schools
Sewers
Public Health Laboratories - the CDC work tracking diseases
Policing
Firefighting
All of these cannot be funded voluntarily, because the free rider problem will be too great.
And here I thought this would be an article about the sorry state of science today, ignorance of basic statistical principles, pretending science can answer questions it can't, pretending results prove things they don't, inability to replicate results and structural lack of attempts to replicate results (doesn't get you published), etc.
Instead, more SJW meta-issues. Cleaning up its act apparently has nothing to do with its actual act.
Ha....National Geographic...one of the biggest disappointments ever.
A "documentary" on NG running for 1 hour has useful content that can be presented in less than 5 minutes. First they show you the "human element" - a scientist going to work in the car, entering the lab while ominous deep voice narrates "And then he/she had a thought that would revolutionize the world...the most amazing insight...and he/she struggled so hard against orthodoxy and...we will tell you this amazing, incredible revelation....after the commercial break. Commercial break, back to film. "As we said before scientist X had this incredible idea" - we are given the summary of the previous, utterly dull and boring 15 minutes before the last break - "What she found shook the world - the SKY IS BLUE. WOW!"
The above happened somewhere 20 years ago and it only gets worse....
The problem with this tripe is that it utterly ignores science. The root of all flaws of Newspeak are that it is based upon two lies:
1. All persons are capable of equal accomplishments.
2. Any differential performance is due to discrimination.
From these two all manner of ridiculous ideas begin to emerge, "Gender is a spectrum," "Homosexuality is not abnormal or an aberration," "Men and women are equal." These are all patent untruths.
1. Gender is defined at the gamete level prior to even conception. Any variation is so far less than 1% to be unmeasurable.
2. Homosexuality by definition would breed itself out within a very short period as the Democratic party is showing full of homosexuals and feminists. It costs more to artificially inseminate and reproduce than it delvers in terms of resources.
3. The last one. Women consume more than they produce and men produce more than they consume. The only way it balances is when women reproduce, thus ensuring the population's survival.
There is actually no need to even debate these things as nature and history has already beaten these arguments to death over millions of iterations over thousands of years. One final statement hit me while meditating upon my run:
"Bigotry is the result of unequal abilities rather than the reverse." -GK
In other words we do no perform unequally due to bigotry, rather BECAUSE we are unequal we may become bigoted. The reason that these premises are extremely important is that they change the complete thrust of our so called modern policy prescriptions. If people are always going to perform at differential ways, how will we address society? This is a complete different, and in fact achievable and falsifiable hypothesis or question.
Does anyone seriously think she's going to support Science when the evidence says that it's a mental illness, not just an opinion?
Just an opinion? What? I don't know what you've been reading, but why don't you give this a skim and then maybe you can speak a little more sensibly on the topic.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
You can always tell the ones who know nothing about climate science, because they fixate on the accuracy of GCMs instead of the actual evidence for AGW. Why don't you go read Arrhenius, Callendar, Keeling, Hansen, and the IPCC report, and then we can have a logical debate about it.
If you understood the models well enough to say anything about their accuracy or utility, you would be expressing your concerns in a journal publication. You're merely trying to discredit settled science. It doesn't work that way. If your epidemiological model is insufficiently predictive, one does not assume that the germ theory of disease is wrong.
And it's pretty ludicrous, because your questions are exactly the topic of the IPCC report. Do you have some intelligent criticism of that work, or were you just going to ignore it and sit polishing your own ignorance?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Which profit-seeking party benefited from the discovery that lead in paint and gasoline probably wasn't a good idea?
Every paint maker since all of the are potentially liable for deaths caused.
All companies constantly seek to make products safer - some of them really do just want to avoid harming others (which only makes sense as companies are run my real people) but you can rationalize the same result as simple self-interest if you are jaded enough.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sorry to use a trivial sporting analogy but it really comes down to available pool. I think most reasonable people will agree for the most part just about anyone can do anything given an equal amount of opportunity and talent.
That said, there is a reason why if the Canadian men's hockey Olympic team played the Italian one, that they would destroy them by a very generous ballpark 10 times out of 10. There is also a good reason (apart from rules) why no one in Italy would have a hope in hell of making said hockey team. Heck if you wanted to make this a gender analogy it would be an even more egregious divide, as about the only team in the world close to the Canadian's Women's team would be the USA, no where else is even remotely close.
What I am getting at in a very round about way is that their is a reason WHY Canadian's are so good at hockey, in particular the women, two reasons in fact. Neither of those reasons being that somehow Canadian's are more say genetically disposed than say the poor Italians I'm picking on (Only using Italy as an example as they actually fielded a hockey team when they hosted the winter Olympics).
Reason #1 is the pool of players from which to draw from. So many people are INTERESTED in hockey in Canada, that the minor leagues have probably well over a million players to pick from. All things being EQUAL, if Italy has say 5000, who do you think are going to be the most best most qualified candidates? That's right the Canadians just by the numbers. How interested a person is to say hockey is controlled by a whole host of factors... To be nice to the Italians out there, you could probably reverse the above for say soccer for example.
Reason #2 is the amount of resources dedicated to the endeavor. Canada in one way shape of form dedicates a tremendous amount of money to hockey. In the form of facilities everywhere (usually tax funded) in rinks and arenas in every little community, to education and training programs, to associations and teams supporting competition, etc...
Anyway to expect say the Canadian hockey team to allow an Italian on the team, simply because it is only full of Canadians is absurd (as is my analogy I know). If they are really looking at expanding diversity, the way to do it is analyse reasons #1 and #2 and see what can be done about that. However the "players" themselves are not the ones to be asking to do anything. As a last thought, at a certain point for some "sports" it either doesn't make sense to try, or if you do, it is understanding that it is going to have limited or diminishing returns. That isn't to say impossible, Jamaican bobsled teams and all...
...you have this backwards. Climate science didn't "align itself with a particular political leaning". It's exactly the reverse: a particular political leaning aligned itself with climate science. And, more notably, a particular political leaning aligned itself against climate science.
Have to disagree here. The mere fact that universities permit the Piper Harrons of the world , the Angry Social Sciences, the Feminist Studies organizations named "The Master Race" - e.g. La Raza along with permitting White men to be attacked in ways which are clearly incendiary, racists and advocating of genocide-
I don't consider any of these to be scientists, so I find this irrelevant to this discussion of whether scientists are aligned with the left, or if the left aligned with scientists.
... I myself used to believe 100% in the impending disaster of climate change. I believed it because I modestly deferred to experts and I am well aware I am unlikely at this stage in my life become a climate scientist and decide for myself. However, when I understood just exactly how intellectually corrupt and bankrupt universities were, how they had instantiated a mono-culture and that entire Ivy Leagues were little more than a cult. When i saw the "best and the brightest" spew out of their own mouths the most inane irrationalities , race and gender-based hatreds, all the while all but uncontradicted by everyone around them, when I saw how professors with minority opinions were literally driven from the university under threats of violence, violence clearly sanctioned by the administrations themselves... well, that opened the door for me that maybe climate science with it's hyperventilating pronouncements was *just more of the same*. Sorry but what I see coming out of the Ivy Leagues indicates to me that there are no adults left in academia, only temper tantrum totalitarians who can would and do lie at the drop of a hat , even about the most profound and important matters we face as a culture and as a species.
Your criticism seems to be aimed at "universities," and more specifically "The Ivy Leagues" (which you call out twice). But the keystone paper on the relationship of carbon dioxide and global temperature was written by Manabe and Wetherald in 1967, when they were both at the General Circulation Research Section of the U.S. Weather Bureau. Neither one was with "the universities," much less "The Ivy Leagues."
So, I don't see why I should pay any attention to your criticism of universities, since it is not relevant. I stand by my original statement: The overall conclusions of climate science have been known since way before the issue got politicized. The science hasn't changed-- it's gotten more detailed, but it hasn't changed.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
All white males in science positions MUST immediately resign, and only people of color, preferably female (though those with gender identity issues will be able to apply) will replace them. Only then will "science" be on the appropriate limb (to not discriminate against lefties or those with paws, wings, flippers, etc.).
Impetuous! Homeric!
Feminist Studies Barbie says: "Math is hard".
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
The "Hidden Figures" movie was OK, despite numerous times it failed to match the book and well-documented historical reality. (Amazingly, the John Glenn story was true. And just about everything else about words or actions -- good or bad -- of white men, from the cop to the Kevin Costner and Jim Parsons characters, wasn't.)
The book _Hidden Figures_ was considerably better, as it covers a larger span of time, and tells more of how those women got to be how and where they were.
As absurd as it may sound coming from a baby-boomer white man, I felt considerably pride in them and their accomplishments. And some embarrassment in being, in comparison, an underachiever.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.