elfmotat

Well, no. You haven't, actually. I checked and the assertions made in each of your previous posts were done with certainty and did NOT include qualifiers like "could be."

 

Here again are YOUR words, the ones to which people are responding:

 

Either you're being intentionally disingenuous, you suffer some problem with basic reading comprehension, or some combination of both those things. Given the topic, it's more likely the former.

The qualifier "in part" is included in all but the first of those. The "could be" was in reference to your incredulity at the notion that biology "could" play a factor. I didn't say it "could be" a factor. I said it is almost certainly a factor.

You have here now just introduced two new qualifiers to your previous claims. The addition of terms "could be" and "in part" are welcome hedges to your previous monolithic and almost certainly inaccurate suggestions on this topic.

They aren't new qualifiers at all. If you go back and read my posts you'll notice that I've been using them all along.

If you're the professor (or TA), then it's definitely not OK to do so.

I'm not. But if I was would it qualify as objectification?

I never quoted a number, so I don't see how it could be smaller (or larger) than I made it out to be, and one of the first problems one encounters is to simply not believe the target. It's so easy to dismiss any problems that way. They're all just making it up.

Claim: there is a subculture of angry misogynist gamers.

Evidence: anonymous death threats issued against popular feminist video game critic.

You have not established that angry misogynist gamers sent the threats. The threats were anonymous. It's not about who should or should not be believed -- there is no evidence in either direction so the default is to believe neither. Belief is reserved for when there is evidence.

I'm definitely sure I never said that death threats should be dismissed. That still doesn't mean you know who sent them.

 

Obviously these tidbits are anecdotal in nature (but from a sample size of about 30 ish science couples, no husbands have ever been asked to support their wives; whereas almost all females have, at one point or another been asked whether they want to give up their careers to have kids), but the discrimination part is evidenced in the study cited above. Personal experience is just in agreement with that (although I will not deny that these experiences are not strong evidence in itself).

 

With regards to misogyny I may have chosen the wrong term. What I meant is unconscious misogyny. Especially in academia you will find few who openly suggest that females are less capable. Yet the actions (again referencing to gender bias in evaluation) points at it. This, is especially troubling in male-dominated seniority situations where the lack of females is taken as evidence of ones own superiority.

Fair enough. I have little doubt that unconscious bias plays a role in, for example, the hiring process.

Thank you for the video but I feel that people are misunderstanding my point. I'm pointing out that when it comes to women victimhood the waters get muddied very quickly. I've backed up my statements apart from the last one which you kindly did however, I see very little evidence from the people talking about women being victims in STEM.

I'd say more generally that advocacy statistics (the methodology) is misleading/poor.

Most animals do not have a demarcation between professional and non-professional behaviors.

I'm still not really clear on objectification. For example, is it acceptable for me to ask out someone in my engineering class who I find sexually attractive? Am I objectifying her by doing this? Why or why not?

That's possible, but as your video is a discussion of games causing sexism, and that was not my claim, it's not much of a rebuttal. The host of the video does admit that threats of violence have occurred, though also claims that we don't know if they were from people within the gaming community. That's debatable, but also irrelevant. The threats exist, and your video backs that up.

At the end she mentions Anita Sarkeesian and starts addressing the validity of her critiques — that's beside the point. It's that Ms. Sarkeesian was threatened with violence for making the observations in the first place. (And other women as well). And are we really supposed to believe that all such threats came from outside the gaming community?

Your claim was that there is a subculture of angry misogynist nerds. If true, it's much smaller than you're making it out to be. Nobody knows who sent the death threats -- it could very well be that she sent them herself. She's been exposed for fraudulent behavior in the past. (For example, lying about playing or even liking video games before she started raising funds for her "Tropes vs. Women" series.) Maybe it was an angry woman-hating nerd like you think. Maybe it was a radical feminist trying to make it look like an angry woman-hating nerd. You don't know any better than I do.

Perhaps that's because it's an obvious straw man of my position, as evidenced by the actual words I wrote... Words that you even took the time to quote yourself immediately after making this assertion above.

If I misrepresented your position then I apologize. You have expressed numerous times that it's a bizarre and unbelievable notion that sexually dimorphic interests could be in part responsible for the gender gap in STEM fields.

I doubt most women in that situation would agree. Which is probably part of the problem. I've heard some of the stories. Scary? Yes. Buzzword? No, not so much. Some of the behavior I've read about is truly horrifying. I think there's a tendency to dismiss them as isolated acts, but acknowledging the sheer volume of them makes it harder to hang on to that self-denial. I think part of it is that many decent people may find it hard to imagine people behaving so boorishly. The perpetrators don't see what they are doing as wrong, especially when it's reinforced by others with the same attitudes.

I never denied the existence of sexual harassment, I asked for a definition of objectification.

The difference is how you act, and the circumstance under which you might act. Finding someone attractive is one thing, but making that a focus of your supposedly professional interaction with them isn't appropriate. The attitude one projects is that a woman's primary function is so that a man can have sex with her, as if it's an entitlement. This problem is amplified when men are in a majority of positions of authority/seniority, which is one of the conditions found in STEM areas.

I could be annoying and say that the primary function of any animal is reproduction, but I won't. The difference is still not so clear to me. How would you distinguish the behavior of someone treating a woman as if her primary function is sex from the behavior of someone treating her as if sex is one of her functions?

Again: for a peek of the lay of the land, see what's been going on with gamergate. There's a whole subculture of people who think nothing of threatening women with rape and other violence. Look up stories describing sexual harassment and sexual assault.

I don't think you're very well informed on this topic.

A citation for this assertion would be nice. As in "required". Regardless, it's not really on topic unless the claim is college sexual assault is somehow preferentially targeted at STEM students

I agree it's not very relevant, but:

These are the opinions of a blogger, and I'm not sure what you expect me to do with them. Would you like me to read through and respond line-by-line like I'm doing here? There isn't anything concrete to respond to in the block of text you quoted.

 

That points to the issue of women perhaps not wanting to be treated as sex objects, particularly in a professional environment.

I've never understood what the term "sex object" means, outside of the literal. What's the difference between "finding someone sexually attractive" and "sexual objectification"? Is there a clear distinction? It just seems like an overused scary buzzword.

Patriarchal.

This should be good.

The Viking legacy of mother/daughter inheritance of property and consequent civil liberties as well as other freedom of action for women tends to obscure it,

Yeah, I'd say so.

but notice (for example) that the early educational systems and related social orders in those countries were established by the Roman Catholic Church. Their flags feature the Christian cross.

Wow, that's pretty bad. The injustice!

In tandem with corroborating evidence, it falls within 'beyond reasonable doubt' imo.

"Beyond reasonable doubt" is the standard in the US, and innocents are still put on death row. It's not a good enough standard by which to be executing people.

You have examples of gender-egalitarian countries with strong STEM educational infrastructure?

 

Norway, Sweden, Denmark?

Singapore was my primary example. Not exactly a "developing country".

True. I suppose my reply was irrelevant.

Yes there is that, but I was thinking of the Islamic State videos which are about as unequivocal as it gets.

My point was, should we write in an exception to the law in the case of video evidence? My conclusion being no, that's still not enough in every circumstance.

What if they are filmed doing it?

So then we get into whether or not exceptions should be made and under what circumstances. For example, let's say a guy robs a bank and kills a security guard in the process. There is video evidence of the crime being committed, including high-resolution face-shots. Seems open and shut. But I can imagine scenarios where the guy may be innocent: maybe the video was doctored to make it look like he did it, or maybe someone else coerced him into robbing the bank by threatening his family, etc. The problem with the DP is that it's a permanent punishment, so there is no room for error.

I have no moral objection to the death penalty, but I have a practical objection to it -- too many innocents are wrongfully convicted for me to conceivably support such a policy. There's always some room for error, which is unacceptable in matters like these.

And chemistry is a subcategory of physics. That doesn't mean people who are comparatively less interested in chemistry are de facto less interested in physics.

However interest in chemistry should serve as a better indicator of interest in physics than, say, a known interest in history. Just like early childhood interest in mechanical systems -- positively correlated with prenatal testosterone levels -- should serve as a better indicator of STEM interest than, say, early childhood interest in human faces -- negatively correlated with prenatal testosterone levels.

Not ideological, but evidence based. Most of it is my training in human psychology, but I should point out that you're now moving the goalposts.

I was asking out of curiosity, so that I'd have warning if I'm engaging in a pointless battle. It's no fun arguing with ideologues.

We are talking about females and the frequency with which we see them today (or don't see them) in STEM roles, not psychological dimorphism in its various forms.

The title of the thread is "Why is the female crowd..." I pointed out that at least some of it is almost certainly due to sexually dimorphic interests. If you have a problem with the studies I cited then explain why.

You've put forth your opinion that this is somehow biological. I've shared my position that such claims are absurd and that there exist far more parsimonious explanations, ones that are supported by evidence stronger than some term paper you found in Google.

Somehow biological, yes. Totally biological, no. Calling it absurd is not an argument. Longitudinal studies from Cambridge are not term papers.

The fact that I find your assertions misguided and wrong based on everything I've read, studied, and experienced does not ipso facto mean I am being obtuse, ideological, or radical... Feminist or otherwise.

That's not an argument either.

By surprising coincidence, in all patriarchal societies women turn out to be naturally interested in... lower paid and lower status work, and men have... more interest in higher paid and higher status work.

The same trend continues into gender-egalitarian countries, and the gap has been at a roughly stable percentage for the past 30-odd years. I cut out the parts about "natural ability," because every study I've ever seen has indicated no significant gender difference in average math/science ability. Ability is not interest. I can be a talented author without wanting to major in English.

Related:

Interest in mechanical systems [math]\ne[/math] interest in STEM, nor does such an assertion negate the social barriers I've already evidenced above.

I feel like I'm talking to a wall. Are you intentionally being obtuse? Mechanical systems are a subcategory of science, technology, and engineering. I've already made explicit that I've never said sexism doesn't exist, or that social progress can't be made.

Do you have some sort of ideological basis for your refusal to acknowledge that human psychology is dimorphic? I've encountered radical feminists in the past who were unwilling to admit that sexual dimorphism even exists.

My comment is equally valid when one replaces the word "ability" with the word "interest." The thrust remains the same. Was not my intent to misrepresent you. Even taking your assertion at face value, you're still wrong, IMO.

So I see you missed post 2. It's not a matter of opinion -- I presented evidence. If you have a problem with the link I cited in post #2 then explain why.

Sexual dimorphism [math]\ne[/math] relevant or significant gender differences in innate STEM ability

You're strawman-ing me again. I didn't say it was relevant to ability -- I said it was relevant to level of interest. See post 2.

Your source is not peer reviewed and is largely crap. It's sort of the equivalent of posting a high school term paper as evidence. To suggest this is primarily a genetic problem is to suggest in parallel that you are not informed enough in the topic to be taken seriously.

 

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140623121000.htm

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/29/sexist-high-school-science_n_5234915.html

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25243274

I was quoting the statistics in table 1, which are from the OECD.

Also notice that I didn't say sexism doesn't exist, or that there isn't room for improvement in education. I'm only pointing out that biology does play a factor, and that humans are a sexually dimorphic species.

Culture. Self reinforcing bias. Women are treated as less capable in STEM and so act accordingly.

Fortunately, this historical trend seems to be shifting.

I don't think so. The gender gap in STEM is cross-cultural. If what you say is true one could expect to see significant deviation in different countries, but that's not what we find. The percentage of women in STEM hovers around 30% in nearly all developed countries. (See here.) When something is universal like that it's an indication of nature, not nurture. I don't think it's particularly bizarre that humans have sexually dimorphic interests.

Some of it may be cultural. When I worked in Singapore, the development teams were, as near as I could tell, about half male and half female. And when I worked in a UK university, pretty much all of the female science and engineering students were from the Middle East and Asia.

The gender gap in STEM fields in developing countries is usually smaller than in most modern western countries. In countries where people are free to work in whatever fields they want, they will tend to choose careers they find fulfilling and interesting. In countries where money is an issue, people choose whatever pays well.

Higher levels of prenatal testosterone is correlated with greater interest in mechanical systems in children. (See here.) Males have 2-3 times the fetal testosterone levels as females on average. I'd venture a guess that testosterone probably has a similar effect on the brain later in life.

The graphic you're describing is just a picture of past and future light-cones. Its relation to the point of your post seems unclear.

"Minkowski space" is just a fancy name given to flat spacetime, i.e. spacetime with no curvature/gravity.

Co-latitude and longitude are two of the four Schwarzschild coordinates on Schwarzschild spacetime. They mean the same thing that they do in ordinary spherical coordinates. I fail to see how this relates to Minkowski space or light-cones.

Please define:

• quantum mass
• dark mass
• "channeling gravity to a point"

I'm not familiar with any of these terms.

What I mean is would they be able to be separated by only 20 million kilometres without any disastrous effects on each other?

And as everyone else has been trying to explain, it depends. It depends on the mass of the planets, the planets' compositions, whatever debris might be between them, the relative planes of their orbits, the eccentricity of their orbits, etc., etc. Asking, "is 20 mil km safe(?)" is a nonsensical question. There are too many unspecified variables here to make a blanket statement of "yes" or "no."

Yes. Direct PDF download link. (404KB)

Interesting read, +1.

In the static approximation the gravitational force between two masses is given by:

[math]F_{G} = \frac{G M m}{r^2}[/math]

where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of one body, m is the mass of the other body, and r is the distance between the two masses. The force of expansion between any point in space and a mass is given by:

[math]F_{\Lambda} = \frac{\Lambda c^2 m r}{3}[/math]

where [math]\Lambda[/math] is the cosmological constant, c is the speed of light, m is the mass in question, and r is the distance between the mass and the point in question. So, setting these equal we get:

[math]r^3=\frac{3GM}{\Lambda c^2}[/math]

or:

[math]r=\sqrt[3]{\frac{3GM}{\Lambda c^2}}[/math]

For reference, the value of the cosmological constant is of the order ~10^-52 m^-2, so the value of r is going to be very very large no matter what mass value you decide to give the bodies.