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Comment by weberc2 | Hacker News Reader

I don’t see how this can be anything but a good thing. If you are certain that there is discrimination against women in physics, then this is a great opportunity to convince the world of it.

I never understood the attitude of “trust us, it exists, but no one is allowed to question it”. I think Feynman said something like “I’d rather have questions I can’t answer than answers I can’t question”.

EDIT: I don’t understand the downvotes. Why would someone not want an opportunity to present evidence of their claims and rebut arguments to the contrary? Why are we so adamantly opposed?

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I upvoted you because I think it's a good question.

One problem is that nowadays, people often don't get presented with the entirety of the available evidence on politically charged questions (like gender equality). Whatever pundit or facebook friend will cherry pick the evidence that suits their agenda, even if that evidence has been thoroughly debunked. So while I agree with you that in the context of academic curiosity, everything that can pass peer review should be published, sometimes publishing something that you know will be debunked later could lead to a net societal loss and should therefore be avoided.

Then again, I'm very against silencing opinions, even for the "greater good" (within some framework I'm sure you could describe China's censorship as for the "greater good")

No one is obligated to amplify opinions either though. HN has a bizzare streak that private publishers and organisations must grant their medium to every controversial opinion that asks, which is bizarre on a forum that is based on letting downvotes directly silence an opinion (and where down votes are only enabled once you clear the bar of a certain amount of up votes in the first place)

>a forum that is based on letting downvotes directly silence an opinion

I cannot express just how strongly opposed to that approach I am. I reserve my use of the downvote to low effort comments, factually inaccuracies, and the like. If we silence people we disagree with we end up with propaganda, not discussion. I’m often hesitant to downvote any comments that espouse a political opinion I disagree with, even if they are eg low effort, because I’m worried about silencing the opposition.

Surprisingly (to me), I don’t see anything about what you should or shouldn’t downvote in the site guidelines, so it’s possible my views don’t align with the hn community as a whole. But I really like being able to have constructive discussion, and would hate to have hn’s quality degrade to that of a political subreddit.

I’m not familiar with that. I’m familiar with the notion that social media giants should behave more like utilities, but that view is based on the sheer volume of speech that they can manipulate even to manipulate our democracies. However, even that view is not ubiquitous here. The other meme that is more widely held that seems similar to what you are describing is support for net neutrality, which again asks private ISPs to behave as utilities, but for different reasons than those given for social media giants.

The last sentence, quoted from one of the critics:

> Strumia “certainly hasn’t attempted any analysis of the relevant systemic problems” that might influence gender differences in physics, such as implicit bias or outright harassment.

Might or mighty, just telling it's systemic actually doesn't show anything.

Questionnaires about hurt feeling in academia don't prove anything either because the same gender bias would apply, everything from what words do you use to implied answers that many time creep in into those "systemic" studies.

>I don’t understand the downvotes

This might help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboo

i think there's something about the voting algorithm. i notice a lot of comments being flagged to death with what can only be very few votes (like 3-4), but then later get unflagged and even upvoted with signifcant numbers. The downvotes always appear to come the first few minutes, (it's as if downvotes count more, or are counted first i dont know?)

The opinions widely held on the east coast are not identical to the opinions widely held on the west coast

I downvoted you because this felt like an egregious strawman:

> I never understood the attitude of “trust us, it exists, but no one is allowed to question it”. I think Feynman said something like “I’d rather have questions I can’t answer than answers I can’t question”.

The researcher who reviewed his paper, and is quoted as being extremely critical of it, did not evince the irrational mindset that you imply:

> The study contains “several unsubstantiated claims,” she says, and doesn’t properly cite or discuss papers that come to conflicting conclusions. “Overall,” Sugimoto says, “the manuscript does not provide a convincing understanding of the literature or the methods, lessening the credibility of the results.”

Furthermore, this reviewer is on the board of the publication in question. And despite her critique, she affirms the authority and independence of the editor-in-chief to publish the paper:

> In an email, Sugimoto wrote that “To maintain the editorial integrity of our journal, the Board of ISSI does not interfere with individual decisions on manuscripts: the Editor-in-Chief assumes full responsibility for editorial decisions.”

Who do you attribute this "no one is allowed to question it" mindset to?

I despise this recent (yes, it is recent) assumption that an author is obligated to include everything related in any way in their bibliography. A bibliography should be a list of papers that informed the paper in question; not every paper has to be a comprehensive survey (how exhausting that would be). If I win the lottery and find a counterexample to the Riemann Hypothesis by testing random numbers, I should be able to publish a paper with zero references, if I so desire; I should by no means be obligated to cite every paper ever written on the Riemann Hypothesis. This is just a lazy cop-out used by reviewers who want to reject papers but can't find any solid objections to the contents of those papers.

I agree that if we give the critic no benefit of the doubt, we might interpret her complaint as petty filibustering done in bad faith. But we only have that short quote from that critic. We don't know if she elaborated – or even if she were asked by the reporter to elaborate – on what she believes the significance of those not-included papers to be.

If she is referring to major omissions, as in, the omitted papers are generally well-known and respected in the field, then her complaint is not a "lazy cop-out" nor a filibuster in bad faith, but a legitimate rebuttal.

I mean, if the paper does not meet the typical standards for a scientific publication, then obviously publishing it is a bad idea.

Note: I am not in any way whatsoever suggesting that this paper is substandard. I have not read a word of it. Just pointing out that there are definite scenarios where publishing papers, controversial or not, can be a bad thing.

downvotes == groupthink

You're attacking a sacred cow. You can't question that kind of claim, unless you have a thick skin. Listen and believe, remember?

Neuroticism and hysterics. See: https://youtu.be/RQExlTM9xvQ

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