
CERN suspends physicist after his science-and-gender talk - kushti
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/01/cern-suspends-physicist-after-his-science-and-gender-talk/
======
Insanity
This was discussed here previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18112125](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18112125)

~~~
slazaro
And it was flagged, because why should we have a reasonable discussion about
something that's controversial, right?

------
orbifold
I think he had personal reasons for giving this talk. He links to a
presentation given by Anna Ceresole
([http://www.weizmann.ac.il/stringuniverse/sites/stringunivers...](http://www.weizmann.ac.il/stringuniverse/sites/stringuniverse/files/the_string_theory_universe.pdf))
at the latest STRINGS conference in 2018 on gender equality. In that
presentation they explain how they created a European Network of female string
theory researchers (virtually unknown to me, never seen a paper by them,
whereas in the US there are a lot of very good female string theorists Cvetic,
Silverman etc.) with the explicit goal of increasing the number of females in
permanent positions. The chair of that EU funded network Silvia Penati
apparently hired Anna Ceresole for a professorship that Allessandro Strumia
also applied for.

There is a stark difference in the number of citations Ceresole (~3000) and
Strumia (~30000) have, and Strumia has roughly double the number of first
author papers. So on the face of it this seems like a very bad case of unfair
/ biased hiring practice.

~~~
Confusion
Only if you think hiring decisions should depend only on certain measurable
professional qualifications. Which they of course never are. If someone has a
specialization that you already have in your portfolio, while a competitor has
a different specialization that would be an addition, then the competitor can
be preferred. If someone is a loner while the competitor is a teamplayer, then
the competitor can be preferred. Etc. Maybe he just behaved like an a* during
the hiring procedure, taking for granted he would be hired. You don't know and
any conclusion based purely on the numbers is unwarranted and premature.

~~~
orbifold
I think it is unethical to hire someone, if you are both part of a special
interest network of any kind. If you compare their citation record on
([http://inspirehep.net/author/profile/A.Ceresole.1](http://inspirehep.net/author/profile/A.Ceresole.1)
and
[http://inspirehep.net/author/profile/A.Strumia.1](http://inspirehep.net/author/profile/A.Strumia.1)),
there is really little contest who should be hired though (both work in high
energy physics, Ceresole more on theory, Strumia on phenomenology). But yes I
agree there are many factors that play into the hiring decision we can't know
about. In any case it seems most likely that this was his primary motivation.

~~~
kork__
And Rosa Parks primary motivation was that she was black and denied a seat.

Since when does motivation make someones point invalid?

~~~
orbifold
I don’t really care either way. There are quite a few very good female string
theorists, who presumably got through the hiring process without any
affirmative action. High energy physics is a very competitive field you just
can’t afford to hire less than excellent people if you want to stay relevant.

~~~
kork__
High energy physics is a dead end field where people impress each other with
how intelligent they are by producing ever more unverifiable results.

------
vilda
The presentation:
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_NyUhOZ8erdqU2AGZJZtNfFeA9...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_NyUhOZ8erdqU2AGZJZtNfFeA91Kefj/view)

Some good points. The proper scientific answer is a peer-review, not a
suspension.

When science and politics collide, politics always win. Science needs an
environment free of politics.

~~~
BeniBoy
This is an unfair description of the content. Some good points, interesting
statistics, but some of the slide would belong more in some obscure subreddit
than in a scientific conference.

"I said Thoughtcrime according to Minister of Truth and PC Thought Police."

"It’s blind human biology practiced as in the plains of Africa thousands of
years ago."

What the hell?

~~~
1000units
English is clearly not his first language. I'd forgive the awkward poeticism.

~~~
BeniBoy
It's not mine either, but I know where this kind of rhetoric comes from.

I don't mean to belittle his work. But his point would come across much
clearly without the last few slides. Let's not make this an idealogical issue!

~~~
1000units
Perhaps I am just less attuned to evil muses, but I think you might be reading
too much into his words.

------
thisagainx9999
Time for everyone to open up the tin can where we keep our opinions. At this
point there's a passive background level of gender politics which seeps into
every conversation at a constant rate like clicks in a geiger counter.
Depending on the facts and narrative, the same people and publications hold up
their news articles as vindication. "look look! sexism is still a big deal"
say team sjw on this article. A few months back it was "look look! sjws really
are being unreasonable" as the demore controversy unfolded. metoo became a bit
of a wash, with points going to both sides. Kavanaugh sits on our tounges
right now as we try to decide if his controversy falls into gender politics or
just normal politics. No minds are changed, just different subsets of people
get slightly quieter for the 2 week news cycle. Its the exact same mechanic as
the gun debate. One group waits for school shootings to say "ban assault
guns", and the other group waits for trucks to plow through crowds to mock the
first group with "ban assault trucks".

Call me privileged or whatever, but this whole thing is a sideshow. It moves
votes and sells papers and nothing more. I wonder if this is what it felt like
in France during the Dreyfus affair.

~~~
adamrezich
I think you'd have to be willfully blind to see that the sexes have been
increasingly turned against one another for political gain by various factions
in recent times to the point of absurdity. I have known these "men vs. women"
(both men and women!) people personally in my life and as I got to know them
better, came to learn that they truly believed in their dangerous, ridiculous,
absurdly reductive worldview at a very core level.

I went to a game development convention with one such person and we started
the event off by watching a presentation given by a woman about how to get
started with VR development in Unity. The presentation was informative and
well-done. As we walked out of the conference hall afterwards, I asked my
friend what she thought of the talk. Her first, immediate, and only comment:
"it was practically all white dudes in there." As a white dude myself I had
absolutely no idea how to answer this. I still don't.

What do you even say to that?

------
matteuan
The rector of his University has started ethical proceedings against him:
[https://www.unipi.it/index.php/english-
news/item/13316-note-...](https://www.unipi.it/index.php/english-
news/item/13316-note-of-the-rector-of-the-university-of-pisa-ethical-
proceedings-against-alessandro-strumia)

~~~
repolfx
Why does anyone try to defend universities anymore? Why does anyone working at
them think they can voice un-PC opinions? Other than maybe the university of
Chicago, are there any that don't routinely punish academics for offending
extremist women whilst still loudly proclaiming that they're bastions of free
thinking and intellectual bravery? I can't think of any.

All I ever read about with respect to universities these days is incredible
weakness. No matter how absurd or extreme the complaint, the administrators
_always_ fold. A terrible sign of the intellectual decay at heart of our
civilisation.

------
randyrand
If this continues to be the response to a reasoned talk about gender
differences, I fear trump-like characters will continue to gain ground.

arguments should be fought with better arguments.

~~~
Confusion
You are assuming this was 'reasoned talk'.

~~~
randyrand
the slides are linked somewhere

------
iguy
I especially like the last paragraph:

> “I don’t think he represents the majority view,” Covi said. “There were a
> few men who were there but they didn’t support his view.”

After all, none of her friends stepped forward to object that she wasn't a
witch. Before or after we burned her!

------
xupybd
Very hard to tell what was said and what happened from that article.

------
randyrand
seems like there are good arguments that he makes that deserve well reasoned
responses.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
having read the whole presentation, I'm very surprised to read the article.
What's on the slides doesn't match the content of the article.

Also, I find it ironic that he mentions people fired because of similar
opinions on the slide 24, and then gets suspended for the same reason. Could
we at least have an honest, open discussion about the content rather than
silencing the (currently) non-mainstream views?

------
sitepodmatt
I read through the slides briefly, is it just an analysis of the current state
of affairs? I can't quite tell to be honest, a lot of jargon there that's over
my head, but I worry if those complaining fall into the same boat as me, in
that there might not be nothing sexist there but now we can't discuss it in
scientific terms now because the mere discussion point is sexist in itself.

~~~
simion314
The issue is that you can make any opinion because you have just some slides
you do not know what was actually said. This institutions should apply the
existing rules for this kind of complaints and this kind of issues are not for
HN IMO.

~~~
sitepodmatt
We agree on last part of the sentence that's for sure.

------
yAnonymous
He does bring up valid arguments and deserves a scientific response.

The people who complain about this and instead of refuting his points
instantly cry out make themselves look bad.

------
kork__
Physicists have been the canary in the coal mine for societies.

From being expelled from Nazi Germany for Jewish physics.

To being dissidents in the USSR for their anti-nuclear stance.

To being killed in the cultural revolution for being bourgeoisie
collaborators.

To being painted as communists in the US for their anti-nuclear views during
the second red scare and their their pro-climate change views more recently.

Somehow I don't see this ending well for gender studies.

------
gerland
It's just overwhelming how this sexist narrative is globally accepted. Being a
man was never easy to begin with, but things like that are really
discouraging.

~~~
mar77i
Then again, us men seem to have put up with it since at least Galileo. Who
famously spoke out something unrelated to the current controversy, but with
the common feature that the clergy at the time also found it comparably
unacceptable.

I'm kind of worried that this inflammating mess is starting to take hold in
Europe after stirring up so many waves in the US and especially Canada.

~~~
mar77i
To make it clear, I'm not advocating against feminism and the debate of this
topic in and on itself, but us technical people, men and women of
enlightenment-era reason "Vernunft" need to consistently contest the growing
conflation between debate and disagreement. It is wrong to automatically
assume that when we consider something "debatable" we secretly believe it to
be "irrefutably false". That is an uncultured and rather arrogant stance,
because an actual debate we enter with the humility of the possiblity that we,
all parties entering debates, any and all of us may be wrong.

To quote Stephen Fry, ''I would like this quotation from Bertrand Russell to
hover over the evening. "One of the painful things of our time is that those
feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding
are filled with doubt and in decision. Let doubt prevail.''

