Cern scientist: 'Physics built by men - not by invitation'

[Ninja'd]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_scientists_before_the_20th_century

I don't know hey. Maybe we should tell all those women in early sciences that they should have just stopped their work as science is the domain of men.

Pierre Curie was so henpecked he just let his wife hog all the glory and take credit for his work.

Don't @ me

 

[Nick333]

Don't be obtuse. I'd be pretty embarrassed if I were that guy after making such comments.

He didn't say women are incapable of achieving anything in physics, so no.

 

[Knyro]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_scientists_before_the_20th_century

I don't know hey. Maybe we should tell all those women in early sciences that they should have just stopped their work as science is the domain of men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chien-Shiung_Wu

This was biggest robbery in physics IMO. Two other physicists won the physics prize based on an experiment that she designed, proving one of the most fundamental discoveries in quantum mechanics.

 

[Knyro]

He didn't say women are incapable of achieving anything in physics, so no.

Did I say he did?

If you don't see the irony in talking smack about how women are inferior when it comes to physics, and then a woman winning the most prestigious award in the field almost immediately afterwards, that's your problem.

 

[EADC]

He said male scientists were being discriminated against because of ideology rather than merit.

One could argue the reverse for far longer but hey.

 

[Sideshow Bob]

One could argue the reverse for far longer but hey.

Males being discriminated against? Where in the world is that? Is it because they are forbidden in women only shower rooms at local gyms?

Lol - reminds of of "reverse apartheid" argument frequently presented here.

 

[konfab]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chien-Shiung_Wu

This was biggest robbery in physics IMO. Two other physicists won the physics prize based on an experiment that she designed, proving one of the most fundamental discoveries in quantum mechanics.

Lee and Yang's research into existing experimental results convinced them that parity was conserved for electromagnetic interactions and for the strong interaction. For this reason, scientists had expected that it would also be true for the weak interaction, but it had not been tested, and Lee and Yang's theoretical studies showed that it might not hold true for the weak interaction. Lee and Yang worked out a pencil-and-paper design of an experiment for testing conservation of parity in the laboratory. Lee then turned to Wu for her expertise in choosing and then working out the hardware manufacture, set-up, and laboratory procedures for carrying out this experiment.[40][41]

The other example of this is the 2013 prize.
The 2013 Nobel prize went to François Englert and Peter Higgs, despite the actual discovery being made at CERN.

I am also calling B.S on not being honoured publicly:

The starting-point of Lee and Yang in their revision of the whole question of right-left symmetry in elementary particle reactions were certain strange observations concerning a kind of new particles called K mesons, which looked as if they were in contrast with the assumption mentioned. Even if these observations puzzled greatly many physicists, it was only Lee and Yang who seriously took the consequences of them, in that they asked themselves what kind of experimental support there was for the assumption that all elementary particle processes are symmetric with respect to right and left. The result of their investigation was unexpected, namely that the validity of the symmetry assumption even in the best known processes had no experimental support whatsoever, the reason being that all experiments had been so arranged as to give the same result whether the assumption was valid or not. As if one had thought that Olav Tryggveson had his heart in the middle of the body because he was equally skilled with the left as with the right hand. Lee and Yang did not confine themselves to this negative statement but devised a number of experiments which would make it possible to test the right-left symmetry in different elementary particle transformations, and proposed them to their experimental colleagues. The first of these experiments was carried out by the Chinese physicist, Mrs. C.S. Wu and her collaborators. Very schematically it consisted in the following. Atomic nuclei of a radioactive isotope of the metal cobalt were exposed at very low temperature to a magnetic field – they are themselves small magnets – whereby they became directed just like compass needles. The distribution as to direction of the electrons due to radioactivity was then investigated.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1957/ceremony-speech/

 

[Nick333]

Did I say he did?

If you don't see the irony in talking smack about how women are inferior when it comes to physics, and then a woman winning the most prestigious award in the field almost immediately afterwards, that's your problem.

This is why the morons will win eventually. The morons have tunnel vision, selective hearing and the tenacity of a rabid squirrel while people with sense just don't have the energy to compete. Saying that there are more men with an aptitude for physics doesn't preclude women from having an aptitude for physics. Neither is it talking smack. Parading examples of women with an aptitude for physics isn't actually disproving anything he said which is the only way you could derive any irony from the situation.

 

[Knyro]

The other example of this is the 2013 prize.
The 2013 Nobel prize went to François Englert and Peter Higgs, despite the actual discovery being made at CERN.

I am also calling B.S on not being honoured publicly:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1957/ceremony-speech/

1) CERN is big science, with innumerable scientists and engineers, only a maximum of 3 people can win a nobel prize, so yeah there was almost no chance of somebody from there winning it for experimentation.

2) I didn't say "not being honoured", she should have won the prize too.

3) A lot of single-handed, or working in a small group experimentalists have wne the prize along with theoreticians. You clearly don't grasp the gravity of her achievement.

 

[Knyro]

This is why the morons will win eventually. The morons have tunnel vision, selective hearing and the tenacity of a rabid squirrel while people with sense just don't have the energy to compete. Saying that there are more men with an aptitude for physics doesn't preclude women from having an aptitude for physics. Neither is it talking smack. Parading examples of women with an aptitude for physics isn't actually disproving anything he said which is the only way you could derive any irony from the situation.

You're clearly determined to argue a point I'm not making. I'm done with this useless conversation.

 

[Nick333]

You're clearly determined to argue a point I'm not making. I'm done with this useless conversation.

Um, yes it was. Let's be honest, you let your mouth run away with you so now you're pulling a Zuma - "listen properly".

There's no irony here unless he said or somehow implied that no woman is capable of winning a Nobel prize for physics, or at least that it was highly unlikely. There's no reversal of expectations here, except that which you and the other SJWs created by injecting meaning into what the dude said that wasn't actually there.

 

[Emjay]

This is why the morons will win eventually. The morons have tunnel vision, selective hearing and the tenacity of a rabid squirrel while people with sense just don't have the energy to compete. Saying that there are more men with an aptitude for physics doesn't preclude women from having an aptitude for physics. Neither is it talking smack. Parading examples of women with an aptitude for physics isn't actually disproving anything he said which is the only way you could derive any irony from the situation.

The first rule of debating is that you should use as little force as required to make your statement or point. Calling someone a moron is not really going to achieve anything. It will just drive your opponent to further extremes.

Lets take this glorious person, Prof Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University. He said that "physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation". Women have been very openly discouraged (often violently and to the detriment of their lives) to not pursue anything academic or science related. With that backdrop, he wants to claim that men built science? Think this claim is really necessary to make his point? He just comes across as a sexist dolt.

If you think that any rational discussion can proceed after a statement like that you are deluded.

 

[Nick333]

The first rule of debating is that you should use as little force as required to make your statement or point. Calling someone a moron is not really going to achieve anything. It will just drive your opponent to further extremes.

Lets take this glorious person, Prof Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University. He said that "physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation". Women have been very openly discouraged (often violently and to the detriment of their lives) to not pursue anything academic or science related. With that backdrop, he wants to claim that men built science? Think this claim is really necessary to make his point? He just comes across as a sexist dolt.

If you think that any rational discussion can proceed a statement like that you are deluded.

Lol. And considering that I clearly do in fact think that a rational discussion can proceed from a factual statement, I suppose your couching calling me deluded in a conditional statement is somehow less insulting?

The fact that -and it's been shown repeatedly in this thread already - the more equal opportunities are, the less women will choose STEM goes to show that, regardless of past oppression, science would have been male dominated anyway.

 

[konfab]

The first rule of debating is that you should use as little force as required to make your statement or point. Calling someone a moron is not really going to achieve anything. It will just drive your opponent to further extremes.

Lets take this glorious person, Prof Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University. He said that "physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation". Women have been very openly discouraged (often violently and to the detriment of their lives) to not pursue anything academic or science related. With that backdrop, he wants to claim that men built science? Think this claim is really necessary to make his point? He just comes across as a sexist dolt.

If you think that any rational discussion can proceed after a statement like that you are deluded.

You (and everyone else) are applying social justice theory to this. Assume he is guilty because he is a man and work from there.

Slides:

Read the slides where he said that, slide 17.

Discrimination against women
Physics invented and built by men, it’s not by invitation.

Curie etc. welcomed after showing what they can do, got Nobels...

In the next slide he lists discrimination against men:

Discrimination against Men
Moseley, Schwarzwild, ... killed in WW.

...

“Oxford University extends exam times for women’s benefit” (changed title).
“Italy: free or cheaper university for STEM female students”.
“Scholarships for women” only.
Melbourne U.: STEM positions for women only.
Many places: administration wants 50% irrespective of merit.
“2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track”.

...

“Only adult able-bodied males ... may be called upon for forced or compulsory
labour” (old UN convention still valid today).
Discriminations against men “shall not be considered discrimination” (Istanbul
convention article 4). Click to check.

...

ERC plans: give priority to “specific policy objectives”: 40% gender quotas.
In theory this means: 40% of funds to 10% of people rare among top authors.

So 1) He didn't start with that, he started with positing two theories. Slides 2 and 3
Theory 1: Woman are being discriminated against in science, because science is a construction of men.

M: “Science (especially physics) is not only sexist but also racist” [S. Harding].
⇒ Discrimination against women in citations, conferences, hirings...
⇒ More ‘gender equality’ gives more women in STEM.
⇒ Less women closer to power and where merit is more subjective.

Theory 2: Woman are not being discriminated against in modern science.

C: some groups over-represented because over-performing.
⇒ Interest and ability not uniformly distributed;
⇒ in a way that explains observations.
⇒ Smarter people less affected by implicit bias, traps, etc.

2) The quote everyone is taking out of context is actually evidence he has given for discrimination against women in physics.
3) You have contradicted yourself:

Calling someone a moron is not really going to achieve anything. It will just drive your opponent to further extremes.

Think this claim is really necessary to make his point? He just comes across as a sexist dolt.

To quote you:

If you think that any rational discussion can proceed after a statement like that you are deluded.

I don't debate with people who couldn't be bothered to give the devil his due.

 

[R13...]

The fact that -and it's been shown repeatedly in this thread already - the more equal opportunities are, the less women will choose STEM goes to show that, regardless of past oppression, science would have been male dominated anyway.

Reason could be that women have been raised and socialized to believe STEM is an old boys club. Effects like that tend to linger and a lot of those who just want to dismiss it as SJW never get it. I had some lady I worked with leave a local company because she felt they were still an old boys club. She may have been right, or she simply didn't cut, but before then she also worked in a male dominated field.

 

[ponder]

Reason could be that women have been raised and socialized to believe STEM is an old boys club. Effects like that tend to linger and a lot of those who just want to dismiss it as SJW never get it. I had some lady I worked with leave a local company because she felt they were still an old boys club. She may have been right, or she simply didn't cut, but before then she also worked in a male dominated field.

Wonder who planted that perception in girls heads back in school days, I would say most girls did not enjoy maths & physical science and they opted for biology, art, history. And it was not like the girls were not encouraged to stick with maths & science either.

 

[Emjay]

You (and everyone else) are applying social justice theory to this. Assume he is guilty because he is a man and work from there.

His statement is divisive. As a women, I would not engage with him in anything. The only thing people are going to see is that statement.

The rest of your post is irrelevant. I am not even debating this professor, therefore debating rules do not apply. I believe in meritocracy, and not quotas. So, please do tell me again how I am "applying social justice theory to this".

 

[Knyro]

Reason could be that women have been raised and socialized to believe STEM is an old boys club. Effects like that tend to linger and a lot of those who just want to dismiss it as SJW never get it. I had some lady I worked with leave a local company because she felt they were still an old boys club. She may have been right, or she simply didn't cut, but before then she also worked in a male dominated field.

Works the other way around do. Any guy that wants to be a nurse, receptionist, interior decorator etc. will get called a fag, effeminate, laughed at etc.

 

[ponder]

Works the other way around do. Any guy that wants to be a nurse, receptionist, interior decorator etc. will get called a fag, effeminate, laughed at etc.

Why? Never experienced that before.

Gay men also seem to follow 'female' jobs. As boys growing up they would have been treated the same as other boys yet their fields of interest seem to be different, maybe it's just the way they are and not due to influence?

 

[Knyro]

Why? Never experienced that before.

Gay men also seem to follow 'female' jobs. As boys growing up they would have been treated the same as other boys yet their fields of interest seem to be different, maybe it's just the way they are and not due to influence?

So do a few straight men. I'm saying influence plays a part. At least in my case, part of the reason I didn't consider those careers is the stigma attatched to them.

Who knows how many more straight and gay men would have been nurses etc. if they didn't have a "for women" reputation.