Crime CERN Scientist: "Physics Built By Men - Not By Invitation" [He's Gone and Einstein's Right...Again.]

[woodguyatl]

@esdoornblad

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45703700

A senior scientist has given what has been described as a "highly offensive" presentation about the role of women in physics, the BBC has learned.

At a workshop organised by CERN, Professor Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University said that "physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation".

He said male scientists were being discriminated against because of ideology rather than merit. He was speaking at a workshop in Geneva on gender and high energy physics. Professor Strumia has since defended his comments, saying he was only presenting the facts.

CERN, the European nuclear research centre, described Prof Strumia's presentation as "highly offensive".

The centre, which discovered the Higgs Boson in 2012, has removed slides used in the talk from its website "in line with a code of conduct that does not tolerate personal attacks and insults".

Prof Strumia, who regularly works at CERN, presented the results of a study of published research papers from an online library.

He told his audience of young, predominantly female physicists that his results proved that "physics is not sexist against women. However the truth does not matter, because it is part of a political battle coming from outside".

In 2015, Nobel laureate Prof Tim Hunt resigned from his position at University College London after telling an audience of young female scientists at a conference in South Korea that the "trouble with girls" in labs was that "when you criticise them they cry".

Straight Fax, homie.

I'm not sure that we should be congratulating men for doing something that woman were prohibited from doing until recently (and still are in some places.) It's like being proud of the fact that only whites played on every winning Major League Baseball team prior 1947.

 

[Higus]

The men responsible only did it in hopes of impressing women and getting some ass. Otherwise they would have been home playing video games.

Newton would say otherwise

 

[JonnyRingo84]

Not gonna wade into this debate but the gender determining SRY gene on the Y chromosome defo plays a huge role in our psychology. @Kafir-kun.

It's Testosterone that directly leads to the actual development of the penile shaft, glans, wolffian ducts and descent of the testicles from the abdominal cavity. It quite literally made you a man a long time before you ever hit puberty, so wielding an enormous impact on your body composition, sex drive, mental state and well-being amongst a multitude of other factors as an adult is light work.

Even in our modern fat shit western society, you won't be likely to find anyone with a total T level north of 1000 ng/dL who at all struggles with their weight unless they've got inordinately high levels of SHGB. Not that surprising considering it boosts your BMR, creates an environment for burning adipose (fat) tissue over lean mass and even directly inhibits the creation of fat cells.

yea. we have differences, men and women.

when you get into behavior though, there is too much within-group variability to make claims like "women are not risk takers so they havent been good physicists."

 

[JonnyRingo84]

One does not have to possess any more than a very basic understanding of biology and chemistry, to know that men naturally produce an anabolic steroid called testosterone. Read up on the subject and maybe you'll figure out the rest.

right.

so men are, on average, bigger risk takers due to testosterone, therefore theyve been the best physicists. far too confounded of a claim for my liking. form follows function, but human behavior and cognition has proven to be more complex than we've been able to identify with hormones and neurotransmitters. also, you've basically ignored the history and context of women becoming physicists in the past. hard for men in some societies, near impossible for women.

give women equity with regard to physics, and then we'll see how things shake out. its almost inevitably going to be more varied now with who contributes to the field. i DONT agree however, that we should embrace the diversity for the sake of diversity goal within physics, though.

 

[NoDak]

I'm not sure that we should be congratulating men for doing something that woman were prohibited from doing until recently (and still are in some places.) It's like being proud of the fact that only whites played on every winning Major League Baseball team prior 1947.

Yea, well I'm clearly a big time misogynist.

Nah just the offended party, plus the slide presentation he gave at the workshop was apparently pretty shoddy. The GIF is in reference to the title, the ladies aren't cutting us out of anything.

The first female Physics Nobel winner in 55 years. Shocking they were giving them to women that long ago, right? As if a woman wasn't the only person in history to win two of them in separate scientific fields - over a century ago.

I actually thought Gabriela González warranted a share of it last year for her work with LIGO on the gravitational waves discovery but it's very difficult to argue against the recipients given their decades-long work on the project, particularly when it can only be split between three researchers.

I just find the whole thing amusing and timely considering a woman just won a share of the Nobel Prize in the field in the same week.

The temperment of women in laboratory work and dealing with criticism is fine for the most part IMO. I don't know why they aren't particularly well represented in physics but it isn't bias, it's just ridiculously abstract. Females have tended to fare much better in the life sciences, particularly microbiology for some reason from what I've seen.

Yea, Lise Meitner probably should've gotten more credit along with Fritz Strassman when he won for that.

It's bullshit. Women indeed can be emotionally chaotic but that hardly means that it inhibits their ability to do intellectually driven work nor do a few examples apply to the whole or even the majority.

There aren't many people seeing Jennifer Doudna right now.

 

[woodguyatl]

Yea, well I'm clearly a big time misogynist.

I was commenting on the position held by the physicist your OP is about.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

women still don't have someone with the intellectual weight of people like Isaac Newton, for example. doesn't mean they won't one day, pretty soon i imagine.
saying that physics is built by men isn't factually wrong, but it's not something one can say in this day and age without getting a lot of people screaming. and it also does not imply women's contribution to physics from now on won't be great or even determine the great new discoveries one day.

 

[NoDak]

women still don't have someone with the intellectual weight of people like Isaac Newton, for example. doesn't mean they won't one day, pretty soon i imagine.
saying that physics is built by men isn't factually wrong, but it's not something one can say in this day and age without getting a lot of people screaming. and it also does not imply women's contribution to physics from now on won't be great or even determine the great new discoveries one day.

Not Newton - not near and virtually nobody is - but pretty fucking impressive. She was one of my friend's professors.

Doudna has been a leading figure in what is referred to as the "CRISPR revolution" for her fundamental work and leadership in developing CRISPR-mediated genome editing.[6] In 2012, Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier were the first to propose that CRISPR/Cas9 (enzymes from bacteria that control microbial immunity) could be used for programmable editing of genomes,[6][7] which is now considered one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology.[8]

Doudna has made fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics and received many prestigious awards and fellowships including the 2000 Alan T. Waterman Award for her research on the structure as determined by X-ray crystallography of a ribozyme,[9] and the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology (with Charpentier).[10] She has been a co-recipient of the Gruber Prize in Genetics (2015),[11] the Canada Gairdner International Award (2016)[12] and the Japan Prize (2017).[13]

Outside the scientific community, she has been named one of the Time 100 most influential people in 2015 (with Charpentier)[14] and was listed as a runner-up for Time Person of the Year in 2016 alongside other CRISPR researchers.[15]

 

[Fox by the Sea]

Not Newton - not near and virtually nobody is - but pretty fucking impressive. She was one of my friend's professors.

Doudna has been a leading figure in what is referred to as the "CRISPR revolution" for her fundamental work and leadership in developing CRISPR-mediated genome editing.[6] In 2012, Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier were the first to propose that CRISPR/Cas9 (enzymes from bacteria that control microbial immunity) could be used for programmable editing of genomes,[6][7] which is now considered one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology.[8]

Doudna has made fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics and received many prestigious awards and fellowships including the 2000 Alan T. Waterman Award for her research on the structure as determined by X-ray crystallography of a ribozyme,[9] and the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology (with Charpentier).[10] She has been a co-recipient of the Gruber Prize in Genetics (2015),[11] the Canada Gairdner International Award (2016)[12] and the Japan Prize (2017).[13]

Outside the scientific community, she has been named one of the Time 100 most influential people in 2015 (with Charpentier)[14] and was listed as a runner-up for Time Person of the Year in 2016 alongside other CRISPR researchers.[15]

ah yes, i know of her. and yes, giants like Newton are harder to come by because the science world is now way, way bigger and the efforts tend to be cumulative, not great lonely strides.

 

[NoDak]

ah yes, i know of her. and yes, giants like Newton are harder to come by because the science world is now way, way bigger and the efforts tend to be cumulative, not great lonely strides.

And if there's an area things such as the Nobel Prize need an update, it's in regards to the number of recipients allowed just simply due to the enterprise becoming such an institutionally-driven group effort. It has largely been that way since World War II with the advent of 'Big Science'. Richard Feynman was probably the last true larger-than-life scientist that made fundamental contributions to his field.

Plus this is Scandinavia FFS, where they had female CEO quotas in place over a decade ago. If a woman well and truly warrants it, she's winning it period. The answer is not shouting fire where there isn't even smoke, or penning articles decrying the historical eurocentrism of science (uhh).

 

[NoDak]

If someone like C.V. Raman had been robbed out of a physics prize (in the 1930s), or Abdus Salam hadn't been given equal credit share with Steven Weinberg for their work on electroweak unification, then I could see a point. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar? Satyendra Nath Bose definitely deserved more credit during his time though. The Boson class of elementary particles - which follow Bose-Einstein statistics - was named in his honor by Paul Dirac.

 

[Andy Capp]

Truth is poison to feminists.

Men absolutely are to thank for physics, what can we thank women for? The wind shield wiper?

We need MOAR women & minorites in STEM.

That would be great, but what we need are the most talented, qualified and passionate people for the jobs as it isn't spectacularly well-compensated relative to mental workload, what we should (continue to) strive for is equal opportunity across the board and what we can do is (further) attempt to cultivate interest among underrepresented groups.

OTOH the more radical ideas about introducing (in)equality quota systems, handing out awards just because and interrogating numbers and equations for their role in "promoting white racial interests" is dogshit stupid. Re: the latter - yeah, really. "Decolonizing Eurocentric science" isn't an option either.

Are you suggesting this year's Nobel Prize for Physics winner was undeserving?
Edit: disregard, saw your later post. I don't think quotas of any kind are the best way to address inequality either, but there is not much doubt there is a male power structure at work that needs a solution of some kind.

 

[Ice That Jaw]

Truth is poison to feminists.

Men absolutely are to thank for physics, what can we thank women for? The wind shield wiper?

Porn.

 

[NoDak]

https://www.phys.org/news/2018-02-countries-greater-gender-equality-percentage.html

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797617741719?journalCode=pssa

Countries with greater gender equality see a smaller proportion of women taking degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), a new study has found. Policymakers could use the findings to reconsider initiatives to increase women's participation in STEM, say the researchers.

Dubbed the 'gender equality paradox', the research found that countries such as Albania and Algeria have a greater percentage of women amongst their STEM graduates than countries lauded for their high levels of gender equality, such as Finland, Norway or Sweden.

The researchers, from Leeds Beckett University in the UK and the University of Missouri in the USA, believe this might be because countries with less gender equality often have little welfare support, making the choice of a relatively highly-paid STEM career more attractive.

The study, published in Psychological Science, also looked at what might motivate girls and boys to choose to study STEM subjects, including overall ability, interest or enjoyment in the subject and whether science subjects were a personal academic strength.

Using data on 475,000 adolescents across 67 countries or regions, the researchers found that while boys' and girls' achievement in STEM subjects was broadly similar, science was more likely to be boys' best subject. Girls, even when their ability in science equalled or excelled that of boys, were often likely to be better overall in reading comprehension, which relates to higher ability in non-STEM subjects. Girls also tended to register a lower interest in science subjects. These differences were near-universal across all the countries and regions studied.

 

[Islam Imamate]

https://www.phys.org/news/2018-02-countries-greater-gender-equality-percentage.html

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797617741719?journalCode=pssa

Countries with greater gender equality see a smaller proportion of women taking degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), a new study has found. Policymakers could use the findings to reconsider initiatives to increase women's participation in STEM, say the researchers.

Dubbed the 'gender equality paradox', the research found that countries such as Albania and Algeria have a greater percentage of women amongst their STEM graduates than countries lauded for their high levels of gender equality, such as Finland, Norway or Sweden.

The researchers, from Leeds Beckett University in the UK and the University of Missouri in the USA, believe this might be because countries with less gender equality often have little welfare support, making the choice of a relatively highly-paid STEM career more attractive.

The study, published in Psychological Science, also looked at what might motivate girls and boys to choose to study STEM subjects, including overall ability, interest or enjoyment in the subject and whether science subjects were a personal academic strength.

Using data on 475,000 adolescents across 67 countries or regions, the researchers found that while boys' and girls' achievement in STEM subjects was broadly similar, science was more likely to be boys' best subject. Girls, even when their ability in science equalled or excelled that of boys, were often likely to be better overall in reading comprehension, which relates to higher ability in non-STEM subjects. Girls also tended to register a lower interest in science subjects. These differences were near-universal across all the countries and regions studied.

Why didn't we think of it before, to get more girls into STEM we just need to make sure they grow up below or near the poverty line so they're properly motivated.

 

[NoDak]

Why didn't we think of it before, to get more girls into STEM we just need to make sure they grow up below or near the poverty line so they're properly motivated.

I don't think we're unfair to girls or try to intimidate them. The mention of STEM on the whole is pertinent because female representation in the physical and biological sciences (especially) is really quite good: In the US, 60% of undergrad degrees on the latter and holds at 50% at the graduate level as well. The areas with the crazy gender disparities are mostly computer science and engineering, not natural science. Short of a PhD and academic tenure, they also generally pay a lot better. :-[

 

[The Diplomat]

The bias confirming assumption is that women have a temperament ill suited to the pursuit of science and the ability to understand and implement the Scientific Method dispassionately.

It's bullshit. Women indeed can be emotionally chaotic but that hardly means that it inhibits their ability to do intellectually driven work nor do a few examples apply to the whole or even the majority.

A scientist ought to know better than to draw sweeping conclusions from cherry picked instances.

Women indeed can be emotionally chaotic

I think you need to stop mansplaining, here. Who are you to say that women "indeed can be emotionally chaotic" ?

 

[Islam Imamate]

I don't think we're unfair to girls or try to intimidate them. The mention of STEM on the whole is pertinent because female representation in the physical and biological sciences (especially) is really quite good: In the US, 60% of undergrad degrees on the latter and holds at 50% at the graduate level as well. The areas with the crazy gender disparities are mostly computer science and engineering, not natural science. Short of a PhD and academic tenure, they also generally pay a lot better. :-[

Yeah I've pointed that out before, that most bio degrees go to women and that's at all levels. And for chem undergrads its like 48% which is basically half.

I think the whole conversation is misguided and based on faulty assumptions anyway. I never see anyone complain about the under-representation of men in the humanities or social sciences where women far outnumber men from the same people or from anyone really. Not that anyone should but it shows how one sided the conversation is.

Women do better in school for the most part so feminists can't complain about overall achievement so they move the goalposts to specific fields at the collegiate and graduate level to make the argument for female victimhood as boys are dropping out of school at higher rates. Its ridiculous and I pay little to no heed to it.

 

[jrams]

women still don't have someone with the intellectual weight of people like Isaac Newton, for example. doesn't mean they won't one day, pretty soon i imagine.
saying that physics is built by men isn't factually wrong, but it's not something one can say in this day and age without getting a lot of people screaming. and it also does not imply women's contribution to physics from now on won't be great or even determine the great new discoveries one day.

Rosalind Franklin and Grace Hopper were badass.

Asking someone to be in Newton's category isn't feasible.

 

[NoDak]

Rosalind Franklin and Grace Hopper were badass.

Asking someone to be in Newton's category isn't feasible.

The only guy who could feasibly stand next to him is Albert Einstein IMO. I'd also say James Clerk Maxwell deserves a shout but you'd have to include Michael Faraday alongside him for the experimental discoveries, electromagnetic induction in particular.

JCM's primary work on electromagnetism ultimately underpins virtually all electric, radio and optical technologies and ushered in modern theoretical physics; he was also responsible for taking the world's first color photograph, laying the foundation of control theory and cybernetics, introducing statistical methods into physics, conducting the first effective scientific thought experiment (Maxwell's demon), showing how polarized light can be used to reveal strain patterns in a structure and was the first to suggest using a centrifuge to separate gases. He died at 48.

So you want to be somebody in this world...