Nobel Prize: We will not have gender or ethnicity quotas – top scientist

I can't. When I hire a removal company the work will be carried out by strong men. Would this company benefit from "diversity"? Should they be hiring more women or disabled people to carry out this work? Would people from different ethnic backgrounds contribute to a more effective team? I doubt it would make any difference at all. But, of course, nobody is talking about jobs like this because they aren't considered desirable.

I question the premise that "diversity" is even a good thing. Where is the evidence that it is? What is it better for? Efficiency? Productivity? Happiness? Just give me one concrete piece of evidence that it's a good thing. I see efficient teams composed of very similar people all the time and I don't see how they would be improved by diversity.

So no, I don't think it's rational at all. Rather, people have been conditioned now to look at people's skin colour, sex, age etc. and be embarrassed if everyone around them is "the same". But this is identical to racism/sexism/ageism etc. It's the very thing we were trying to get away from and it's completely irrational.

As should be obvious to anyone who has studied the history of communism.

If the top of whatever Nobel prizes are handed out for remains white men, nobody that doesn't fit that category will feel like they have a chance.

Anyway, it's one strategy; the other, and IMO more important one, is to give everybody equal access to education and the sciences. This is a governmental issue, who should be paying for everyone's education, transport to said education, and if need be, housing near said education. And of course strict anti-discrimination and anti-elitism laws. Breaking up concepts of 'class' should also be a thing, since right now, working class people will be less inclined to go to university for example.

I've been lucky in that regard; grew up 'working class', but thanks to the at the time government policies of giving out stipends for education I got college educated and a career in software development, moving up to middle class. It's a great example of social mobility, and I think everyone should have that opportunity.

But after my education, the government pulled up the ladder behind me. First by changing the scholarship rules so that after a certain age you are no longer entitled, making it harder for people to go from college to university for example. Then they changed it so it's 100% a loan, which on the one hand makes people less inclined to start a higher level education, and on the other it starts their career with tens of thousands of debt, making it harder to e.g. buy a house and start a family alongside their career.

I mean there's voices going up to undo those changes now, but it's been years under this shitty system and damage has already been done.

It's stupid as well, because it's a relatively small cost at great benefit - it doesn't make financial sense. Say an education costs the government 50.000 per person. That is repaid in income taxes alone within 3-5 years.

edit: well this comment meandered a bit.

And if, as you claim, it's impossible to know if the quota worked, it's also impossible to know if it didn't work, so I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from this special case.

The way crab fishing used to work in the Bering Sea for example is that each for each crab season the agencies that manage the fisheries would determine a total amount that the fishery could support that year, and then the fleet would go out and catch that. This was called the derby system.

As each boat caught crab it would report its catch, and when the total across all boats hit the limit the season ended and everyone had to stop fishing.

Safety took a back seed to fishing speed in this environment, because if anything slowed down fishing or made you miss some fishing time it could dramatically lower your catch.

They replaced that with a quota system. For each type of crab's season each boat gets a quota and the season runs a fixed time.

Under the quota system the boats have plenty of time to catch their quotes without having to compromise safety as much.

Under the derby system, the Alaska crab fleet was averaging a little over 7 deaths a year. After the switch to the quote system it was around 1 death every 5 or 6 years.

Big parts of this decrease can directly be attributed to the change from derby to quotas. Around 2/3 of the derby deaths were due to boats piled high with crab traps capsizing. They went out, dropped everything they had, waiting 12-24 hours, and pulled them. Empty those into the crab tanks and go lay the traps again.

Under quota, the boats aren't in such a hurry. When they lay traps they leave them down for 36-48 hours. They can lay some traps and then go pick up more and lay them before it is time to pull the first group so they don't need to go out with the boat piled to near overload with traps.

Being about to keep the traps down longer helps them in other ways, too, not safety related. The traps are designed so smaller crab that aren't big enough to legally take can escape, but that takes them time. When you pull in 12-24 hours you get a lot of small crab that haven't escaped yet, meaning more work for the crew to separate them and throw them back.

After 36-48 hours a lot more of the small crabs have left so less work for the crew. Also it is pretty traumatic for a crab to be caught and then thrown back, and many don't survive that. In the derby days this killed enough young crabs that it reduced the available harvest in future seasons. Stopping that reversed a long decline in some crab populations.

These are all solvable problems. Cameras on the boats, tighter limits on nets, etc.

If a population is known the scam at a high enough level, it should get tighter oversight.

(1) It puts you at odds with everyone who doesn't share your moral calculus. E.g. Hitler did a great job advancing his mission, despite ultimately losing the war (because too many people found his mission morally revulsive). Things like "justice" and "fairness" are the minimum standard upon which we can (sometimes, to some degree) agree to as a society, so any mission that breaks those standards (as racism/affirmative action does) will rightfully experience a large push-back.

(2) Does the action actually advance the mission? Sometimes it might backfire. E.g. I know people (that live in America) that don't like going to black doctors, not because they're racist, but simply because they know that they were subject to affirmative action, so might be less skilled than non-blacks (using doctors is a good example, as it usually invokes a strong rational response "would you rather take your child to the best doctor, or to the second-best doctor?")

Lets approach this a bit differently - Is there something inherit within a segment of our population that makes them more meritable and "better scientists"? The answer is either:

- Yes, a subset of our population is superior and awards like Nobel Prize should be dominated by them

- No, everyone is generally of equal skill and merit (or potential), and the Nobel Prize should roughly, on average, be awarded to people that look like the population.

Then, considering your answer above, how does that match to reality? What accounts for this mismatch? Why are fields (and awards like this) underrepresenting our populations?

If you want "the best science" and to be continuously improving the field, don't you want to make sure you're not shutting the door on whole demographics? To say "focus exclusively on merit" seems to suggest that you think that merit favors one demographic.

The Nobel Prize organization operates on a very dated model of merit.

In my experience, if you look at young kids, no matter the gender, ethnicity or class, they are all equally interested in science. But as they grow older, they start to move apart. Many boys who want to study but don't know what choose physics or computer science as a "default" (like I did). Girls are more likely to default to humanities or a teaching career. The really passionate kids are less affected by this, and choose what they want, but I know a bunch of people who chose the supposed "safe default" and were miserable or dropped out. It is not just bad for them, but also for society, if we are training some additional mediocre men, and missing some talented women in a field.

Same applies to other categories. When I look at my kid's classmates, you can tell unfortunately who's parents have the time and money and energy (and habit from their own upbringing) to support them properly in school, to read to them, and so on. The difference is minimal in Kindergarten, but kids drift apart quickly.

What I'm trying to say is there is a funnel in life. People who are not as priviliged as maybe I am, often "play in hard mode". To me, quotas etc. are not exactly about achiving justice or fairness or equality (you could do that by disadvantaging the priviliged, so that everybody is equally bad off. I think that is what many people fear when they think of affirmative action!). It is about righting a systematic wrong.

And it is not like AA means we will be giving stupid people scholarships. Right now we are often accidentially prefering less qualified people just because they are white or men. Trying to steer against that can only be a net win for society.

In my debates, I'd often ask people "do you have any data to support your position" but if I had data that argues against their positions, that'd be even better!

> The large majority of work on quota adoption suggests that quotas are followed by the greater substantive representation of women’s interests, priorities, and preferences. However, several studies have documented cases in which quotas have resulted in limited policy changes or even more gender-inegalitarian outcomes. ...

> On average, quota-elected women appear to influence policy in ways that substantively benefit women constituents, either by distributing resources in ways that reflect women’s priorities or by enacting or enforcing policies that grant women greater rights. Yet, these findings are not universal, and some work uncovers null results or even instances of backlash against women officeholders in ways that exacerbate patriarchal policies and practices. That there is such variation in the observed policy effects of gender quotas suggests the potential for moderating variables.

That's specifically on policy making, but I think it's enough to highlight how evidence of backlash - which certainly does exist! - isn't on its own enough to make data-driven decisions.

A good example is India where quotas has been ingrained in every part of society and at the end many dexterous candidates doesn't get a seat. Quotas were introduced in India to alleviate poverty but now a days its just used by politicians to appease minorities. Quota were supposed to temporary but we know it is never going away.

I want society to solve problem not circumscribe at the problem and mark it as solution.

Medicine is decided by a group at Karolinska Institutet (Sweden's largest hospital and medical school).

Peace by a committee in the Norwegian parliament.

By a committee appointed by, but independent of, the Norwegian parliament. Also the committee contains no current members of the Norwegian parliament.

I have lived and worked in a foreign country. When I got my first job there, my new boss joked I'd gotten the job because of diversity quotas. I was horrified at the idea that my skills wouldn't matter but only my status of a being an non-native. So I can see where you're coming from with the "quota-thing".

I am sceptical, like you. Quotas are inherently discriminatory, but I am open to the idea that if the entrenched elite is bigoted or biased too it might be the only way to break things open.

So you can write up a report saying 'oh dear oh dear, only 20% women, 75% of new hires ought to be women so we start to even out' - but you can't actually effect that unless 75% of the ceteris paribus good hires happen to be women, you can't say (or think) 'oh good, a female interviewee, we need some more', you can't hire her in preference to a male peer (nor vice versa of course) on that basis or partially on that basis.

Of course it happens, 'nobody gets fired for' making diversifying hires, but that's why I say it's weird. If you really follow the letter of the law I think there's nothing for it but to effect change at the beginning of the 'pipeline' (or wherever it's going wrong) - and have a strong (correct?) conviction that an equal outcome is the right/natural/desired-by-themselves outcome. Then if your diversity report differs (statistically significantly) from 50% anywhere, you know there's (illegal) discrimination going on in hiring. For now, you know that when it is 50%, or much different from the rate in the applicant pool, so it's really at odds with 'affirmative/positive action' IMO.

There's no need to pinpoint women in high position now. Historically there was a strong bias to choose men instead of equally qualified women. You should look at (eg) every male doctor hired in the 1950s and 1960s as not really achieving that position through their own merit.

Your ire extends, I presume, towards legacy preference at colleges. Those students should certainly be seen as a "quota-thing", not achieving that position by themselves.

Jo Freeman's classic essay "The Tyranny of Stuctureless" points out that when there is no formal structure, informal structures arise, masking the power of elites. If there are informal quotas - eg, systemic cultural biases [1] - then a solution may be to switch to formal quotas.

[1] The stereotype of a scientist is 'white males wearing lab coats, eyeglasses, with facial hair, and an eccentric appearance'. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/edri/2019/6324704/ Someone who fits the stereotype is more likely to be seen as and accepted as a scientist, and not have to deal with comments like "you can't be a scientist - you're too pretty!"

I agree that a blind-as-possible hiring process is probably the most fair, but I have doubts that it actually leads to the best hiring decisions. Although, quotas are fair to no one, in my opinion.