That's depressing... The premise of the study didn't process as potentially controversial with me until it was mentioned in the article.
Three days later, however, the paper had vanished. And a few days after that, a completely different paper by different authors appeared at exactly the same page of the same volume (NYJM Volume 23, p 1641+) where mine had once been. As it turned out, Amie Wilkinson is married to Benson Farb, a member of the NYJM editorial board.
Upon discovering that the journal had published my paper, Professor Farb had written a furious email to Steinberger demanding that it be deleted at once.
“Rivin,” he complained, “is well-known as a person with extremist views who likes to pick fights with people via inflammatory statements.” Farb’s “father-in law…a famous statistician,” he went on, had “already poked many holes in the ridiculous paper.”
My paper was “politically charged” and “pseudoscience” and “a piece of crap” and, by encouraging the NYJM to accept it, Rivin had “violat[ed] a scientific duty for purely political ends.”
Fucking what.
It looks like it was all a flash in the pan, and Amie Wilkinson and Benson Farb are still teaching together at the University of Chicago. There was plenty of news about this in October, but apparently no major publication wanted to deal with gender politics.
People weren't going to like the paper, that much was obvious. But it amazes me that two times, one person behind the wheel ran it over. The identity politic pushers are winning. They dictate what is appropriate in a vacuum, and then threaten companies and politicians into following the narratives they set up.
last edit on
4/20/2019 11:14:11 AM
It looks like it was all a flash in the pan, and Amie Wilkinson and Benson Farb are still teaching together at the University of Chicago. There was plenty of news about this in October, but apparently no major publication wanted to deal with gender politics.
People weren't going to like the paper, that much was obvious. But it amazes me that two times, one person behind the wheel ran it over. The identity politic pushers are winning. They dictate what is appropriate in a vacuum, and then threaten companies and politicians into following the narratives they set up.
this is all the more worrying because science becomes streamlined, and any skeptics (like newton, descartes, darwin) can easily be dismissed as a moron using these biased scientific reviews, under the pretense of "m-muh science"
Have you guys read the paper (it's crap btw)? Or the correspondence between Hill and various involved parties? As have been many Quillette articles (mind your sources folks), this account is biased. It exaggerates the severity of certain factors and omits others altogether, to paint opponents of the article in a worse light. There are even some minor factual mistakes in it, the importance of which is debatable, but it does bring the integrity of the piece into further question. I entirely agree that this was handled poorly on the part of the Intelligencer, the NYJM, and certain individuals. But frankly the paper shouldn't have been accepted in the first place. They did however, make quite a mess while trying to clean up after themselves.
In regards to those who seem to think that this is a sign of some tide of extreme change, zoom out. Academia has always been in the stranglehold of culture, politics, profit, and special interests. Countless intellectuals have been silenced on countless subjects for countless different cultural/political agendas, for as long as humans have had the luxury of giving a shit. Nothing that's happening here is new, it's just a different flavor. Don't get me wrong, it sucks. But it says surprisingly little about the times or the individuals within them.
Кто Кого?
What really gets me is that the NSF pulled funding do to pressure.
That is appalling.
This is inaccurate. Read your own article.
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4/23/2019 4:38:19 AM
What really gets me is that the NSF pulled funding do to pressure.
That is appalling.
This is inaccurate. Read your own article.
"First, the National Science Foundation wrote to Sergei requesting that acknowledgment of NSF funding be removed from our paper with immediate effect. I was astonished. I had never before heard of the NSF requesting removal of acknowledgement of funding for any reason. On the contrary, they are usually delighted to have public recognition of their support for science.
The ostensible reason for this request was that our paper was unrelated to Sergei’s funded proposal. However, a Freedom of Information request subsequently revealed that Penn State WIM administrator Diane Henderson (“Professor and Chair of the Climate and Diversity Committee”) and Nate Brown (“Professor and Associate Head for Diversity and Equity”) had secretly co-signed a letter to the NSF that same morning. “Our concern,” they explained, “is that [this] paper appears to promote pseudoscientific ideas that are detrimental to the advancement of women in science, and at odds with the values of the NSF.” Unaware of this at the time, and eager to err on the side of compromise, Sergei and I agreed to remove the acknowledgement as requested. At least, we thought, the paper was still on track to be published."
I acknowledge my inaccuracy.