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Comment by wyclif | Hacker News Reader

Fun fact: the author of the memo earned a PhD in Biology from Harvard. Google can fire him and get away with it, but it's going to be tough, very tough, for him to be falsely characterized as someone who is misinformed or unscientific. And the court of public opinion may well be more important in this controversy than any court of law.

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Highly educated people in the sciences can in fact be quite vulnerable to just this type of hubris, ie thinking that having expertise in one area means expertise in the whole field.

Nobel prize winning scientists have damaged their reputations by opining on matters they know little about (James Watson on genetics, and many others )

Some infamous examples:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18638_4-nobel-prize-winners-w...

> Nobel prize winning scientists have damaged their reputations by opining on matters they know little about (James Watson on genetics, and many others )

You mean to say that James Watson, the Nobel prize winning geneticist knows little about genetics?

Watson is a Chemist who used his expertise in physical chemistry to discern the structure of DNA....that is not the same as knowing genetics (which is a huge field).

*The point is not to belittle his accomplishment (which would be silly) but to point out that he veered into a field that he was mostly unqualified to offer an informed opinion on, never mind a very controversial one.

Also, it's a HUGE controversy in the scientific community that he and Crick got the Nobel prize and most of the credit for discovering the structure of DNA, and Rosalind Franklin gets none. I thought that was well known.

That's because she was dead and posthumous Nobel Prizes are not awarded. Not because she was a woman.

You are being downvoted for saying James Watson knows little on genetics. Oh my god. Do you even realize what you are saying.

Well to judge him on his merits and not his credentials, the memo was neither rigorously argued or all that persuasive.

It is ironic that defenders who claim to want a meritocracy are also defending the author because of where he went to school.

It was more rigorously argued than simply stating that 'was neither rigorously argued'. I've seen this sentence now a 100th time in this topic, and I haven't seen any of kind of proof for opposing any of his statements. They don't say that the school matters, they say you have to actually refute him instead of saying 'he's just stupid'.

Don't bother. These are the same people that are mad at alleged quotas being the only reason why they can't go to elite schools (and then saying school doesn't matter afterward).

I see your point, but the fact that he has the degree means he studied biology for many years of his life and contributed his own interesting ideas to the field. I think Harvard is the less important part here, although it is "well-respected" for a reason.

It's not clear why anyone would think his experience with yeast microbes translates into any relevant insight on the topics he discussed.

Clearly scientific training does have at least some credence to scientific arguments.

Seems similar to what happened with Larry Summers - also affiliated with Harvard. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2005/1/14/summers-comments...

Having a phd in biology doesn't prevent someone from being wrong

I didn't say he was infallible by merit of a specialized academic degree. He could very well be wrong, but the fact that he has a PhD in Biology from a top Ivy League school should at least give his thesis academic plausibility (even among those who strongly disagree) and allow for the possibility of reasoned debate over the issue instead of a politically-correct witch hunt.

You are weighing the credentials more than the work at hand.

Not having a PhD in biology will probably make you less right than him.

This is such a funny statement to be made in a place that values "hackers" and decries the need for formal education

Maybe, but not everyone here agrees with that statement obviously.

Maybe I should have added: In absence of anything that probe you are a hacker in biology.

Not having a PhD in biology might help you look beyond biology to hypothesize causation about an observed correlation

What if the cause is in biology? You will miss it that way. Bear in mind that we are like we are because of our genes. You are not blonde or brunette because something your mother ate or you did in another past life. Genes also impact in intelligence and skills. The environment is another factor but the base is set by genes.

I have a PhD in astrophysics from a peer institution of Harvard. I know dozens of people with PhDs who are "misinformed and unscientific" on many topics, including their nominal specialization.

And by the way, another fun fact:

As far as I can can tell, he doesn't have a PhD. He didn't publish any papers while he was at Harvard. You don't get through a modern elite PhD program without making any contribution to the literature. And his thesis is not showing up in any library search I do. He seems to have dropped out very early.

No shame in that, of course. But since you and many others are saying he has credibility on a matter unrelated to the topic of his PhD precisely because he has a PhD: he, er, may not have a PhD.

By the way, the more cited of his two papers reads like it was written by someone very new to research, who had his editor open in one window and the Wikipedia page for "List of Logical Fallacies" open in another.

Update: he doesn't have a PhD https://twitter.com/nitashatiku/status/894939560391565317.

This explains some things. I was sort of surprised he had managed to defend a thesis after trying to follow his argument in the piece in question. I don't expect thesis level work from a forum post, but for something with so much work put into citations and footnoting, it's so bad at linking its evidence to its arguments and its arguments to its conclusions (or even deciding, what, in fact, it's central thesis is). For what he deems to be such a hostile audience, it's very poor piece of persuasive writing.

It is not a thesis. If anything, it's more like a precursor to a thesis. This is akin to sitting down with the professor, and suggesting that some of these factors may explain certain phenomenon, and should be researched.

I am sure he spent many months on it...

lol

I know a lot of people with PhDs from Harvard. That would and should play no role in my evaluation of whatever argument they're putting forward, if that argument has little to do with their area of expertise. Getting a biology PhD has no relevance to whether someone truly understands the literature in evolutionary psych.

No, it will be very easy. Don't mention his training in any articles, and 95%+ of the readership will not look into his qualifications or training.

It absolutely does not follow that everyone who had a PhD at Harvard in Biology gets to say whatever they want about humans, especially in a way that's derogatory of his coworkers.

Agreed.

But my point is that even if this person were qualified to make such assertions, his qualifications can be easily made invisible through editorialization.

If I've learned anything since November 2016, it's that messaging will frequently overpower facts.

His qualifications _should_ be invisible. An argument should stand on its own merits.

He sure doesn't have a PhD in women's studies.

I love this comment because both sides will strongly agree wit it for completely opposite reasons.

Do a large amount of moderate leftists actually think a PhD in Women studies is "legit"? Genuine question

When I was in academia there was no shortage of my peers with PhDs in physics who were very religious. Having a PhD in a science is not proof against having misinformed or unscientific views.

Being religious and scientific are not mutually exclusive. I am not a religious person, but my professor, who is very religious, is one of the most rigorous scientists I had the chance to work with in person.

His religious beliefs are unscientific, and that is independent of how rigorous his practice of science is otherwise.

Nor is being very religious proof of having misinformed or unscientific views.

Sure... believing in something for which there is no evidence is a super informed view.

Yes, it is very much at least the latter. There is absolutely no scientific support for relgious beliefs.

Nope, it's very easy to characterize him as misinformed and unscientific, since he published the evidence in writing.

Plenty of bigots have degrees. There are nazis and muslim fundamentalists with degrees. Extremist ideology tends to override unwelcome facts.

The memo speaks for itself.

Factual fact: The dude doesn't have a PhD. He suggested he had one, but he never completed his PhD program nor did he publish any papers.

Factual facty fact: he didn't "suggest he had one". You make it sound as if he was inflating his credentials. He was listed as in the PhD Biology programme on Harvard's alumni site, and the press incorrectly reported that he earned a PhD.

Now, it's important to correct the record if he didn't complete the PhD. But he did publish papers (at Princeton and MIT).

You stated multiple times that he has a PhD from Harvard. That is a falsehood. It's not an "if", it is a fact. Harvard confirmed he didn't earn a PhD to a Wired reporter[1].

You are correct that he wrote two papers.

You now state that he "didn't suggest he had one", when in fact he did: he said "PhD, Systems Biology" on his linkedin[2] profile.

This is shameful behavior on your part, but understandable because your defense of his joke of a memo depends on his authority to speak about the subject as a PhD in Biology, which he doesn't have.

Maybe it's time for you to go back to all the places where you stated he has a PhD and post retractions.

[1] https://twitter.com/nitashatiku/status/894939560391565317

[2] https://twitter.com/NuritBaytch/status/895010602380341248

Yes, I stated that only while it was being reported by the press and I didn't have better information. I mean, come on. As soon as I found out he didn't, I retracted right here in this thread. If that's not enough for you, then that's too freakin' bad. If you think I'm going to apologise for commenting based on the information currently available, you're going to wait forever.

What does that have to do with anything? Do you think having an advanced degree makes you invulnerable to common biases or errors in reasoning? Do you think that having a STEM degree makes someone knowledgeable in issues of sociology? Ben Carson is a very accomplished neurosurgeon, and yet he has enormous gaping voids in his knowledge of other subjects.

I didn't say he was infallible. He could be wrong. I'm talking about academic credibility—and he has it.

a STEM degree

A STEM PhD from Harvard. FTFY. And comparing James Damore to Ben Carson is, frankly, absurd. James Damore is not a politician, he's a scientist. He's not some yahoo in a comment thread, arguing with academics and professionals in their field from his parent's basement.

You're highlighting another big problem these days, slavish reverence for the 'best schools'.

I will also get a PhD from Harvard, and from a more selective program than this person. Yet I recognize the limits of my knowledge.

Studying microbes [1] does not give you the standing to discuss sociology. If your very well-qualified dentist wanted to do a code review of your last commit, you might think twice before accepting his advice - namely, you would ask what special knowledge he has, besides being a generally smart individual.

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Damore%20JA%5BAuth...

Why would we expect a bio PhD to be an expert in social psych and sociology?

Exactly. Leave it to someone with a PhD in biology to decide that biology is the only possible true hypothesis on why a correlation exists

It was Harvard alumni with PhDs who wrote the piece of crap that is The Bell Curve in the 90s. A Harvard PhD guarantees neither accuracy nor correctness.

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