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Comment by thraway3837 | Hacker News Reader

There is nothing about “intersectional scientific method” anywhere on the internet or on the org’s website. https://www.vanguardstem.com/serch.

Non profits (WMF) grant money to programs that directly or indirectly affect the content of all products offered by the WMF. It’s not just Wikipedia. There are grants that goto volunteers to increase editorship/authorship of non English Wikipedia or in countries and culture where Wikipedia does not have as many articles.

Calling this culture wars and simply saying “the money doesn’t goto hosting” is low complexity thinking that fails to account for all the things the foundation does.

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https://conversations.vanguardstem.com/hotsciencesummer-faq-...

>What is the intersectional scientific methodology? The Intersectional Scientific Methodology (ISM) is the concept that your identities and experiences influence your science. We coined this term in our peer-reviewed article. You will need to address how your project incorporates embodied observation, embedded context, and/or collective impact in the additional information section of your proposal to be eligible for a boost.

This isn't nearly the bogeyman people would have you believe it is. One's "identities and experiences" can easily influence which questions they are and aren't addressing (intentionally or not). None of this "intersectional scientific method" seems, however, to degrade the scientific method itself.

Five years ago it was just some crazy college kids, pay them no mind, now they have institutional control of HR departments and college administrations. Scientists in academia have to write proper ideological statements about how "woke" they are in order to research fluid dynamics.

Until this kind of thing gets successful pushback, we should assume they'll continue to reorient institutions around the culture war and there will be no outbreak of common sense.

Knowing, acknowledging and accounting for one's own biases is just good science.

You wouldn't use a thermometer that was always 10C too high to measure and reports temperatures, without pointing out that the thermometer has a 10C bias, would you? Why would you oppose introspection about oneself and one's own potential biases in knowledge production?

Explicitly enforcing biases towards a particular ideological project is not "unbiasing", though, it's more bias.

Maybe I'm engaging in FUD and these people will be content with some minor efforts towards restraining bias, but in my experience it's never enough.

Maybe I am missing the part where is says there is a particular ideological project beyond better science?

You act like bias isn't actually a problem in science, but when I think back to the number of studies recruiting on campus at my Highly Selective Undergrad Institution (TM), and cross reference that with the student population, it's really easy to understand the claims that science is WEIRD[1].

[1] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/05/weird

You're describing a very legitimate sampling error problem. I'm describing forced ideological conformity. Both exist in academia today.

If, in the spirit of the proposed "bias declaiming section", a social scientist made a point of saying that they're systematically biased against conservative and white/rural viewpoints, how do you think that would go over? Pat on the back for introspection?

I think so, yeah, sure.

Why don’t you think so? "Our own academic perspective limits us e.g. in our survey design and language, making it harder for us to connect with our respondents" is something I heard and learned over and over and over again.

That's different. Your phrasing is politically neutral and could even be interpreted as centering blue-favored groups.

My contention is that any "unbiasing" which said "we are going to lean conservative to counter our innate liberal bias" would not be welcomed.

(I'm a liberal, btw, I just believe in calling a spade a spade. Don't call one-sided activism "unbiasing".)

Please don't add disclaimers like "I'm a liberal", it should not matter what your political opinions are. Shoot the message, not the messenger after all?

1. That's not what is happening here. There's no intention to use this to make science better.

2. Even if it was, some people are assumed to be "biased" based on silly things like the color of their skin or what gender they are. The bias-checking process is biased.

This comment says a lot about your worldview, but not much about anything else.

> I'm right, you're wrong

Great argument

> Account joined 34 days ago

Nevermind, I'm sorry I said anything.

You made two wild assertions without any evidence.

When all the biases one is asked to acknowledge and account for are biases against one specific political movement and its symbols, this is an isolated demand for rigour (https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...) and not necessarily good for science. To adapt your thermometer metaphor, if there were two types of thermometer in circulation, one 10C too high and one 10C too low, would demanding that people constantly remind each other, and where possible correct, for thermometers that output a temperature that is too high (and perhaps labelling any reference to the low-balling ones as dangerous misinformation by people who have a vested interest in high readings) actually improve the quality of scientific output? On the meta-analysis level, the opposite might happen, if the biases used to cancel out on average and now one of them is left standing unopposed.

And which biases, specifically, are asked to be accounted for? My count on that page is zero.

It’s not about biased tools though. I would use a device invented by a Nazi scientist.

In fact we all benefit daily from scientific discoveries made in oppressive, violent, bigoted regimes.

I had to write one of those to apply for an institutional HPC job in the last year or so.

> about how "woke" they are in order to research fluid dynamics

If someone asked VanguardStem to fund a fluid dynamics project, what are you imagining they would have to say in order to pass the ISM criteria? This concern comes across like hyperbolic fearmongering.

That they would work to promote diversity and a commitment to diversity with whatever managerial power they ended up with as a part of the position.

Oh, yes, there's the aforementioned hyperbolic fearmongering.

I'm not sure why you're calling that fear mongering, it's perfectly normal. Where don't you have to voice a commitment to diversity? I guess startups without HR?

How is it fearmongering? Mandatory “diversity statements” are a growing trend in academia.

It’s been discussed on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33053149

It's a real thing. UC does it and other institutions.

In order to be considered for a job, you lead with a "diversity statement", this is looked at before your job qualifications even, and there are right and wrong opinions to put in it. "I want to treat everyone equally" is a Wrong Opinion.

> Scientists in academia have to write proper ideological statements about how "woke" they are in order to research fluid dynamics.

This isn't new you have always needed to give a good reason why your research should be funded. The funding should be used to progress human knowledge or contribute to your community, save lives etc.

The days of righting "fluid dynamics is cool $500k plz" aren't behind us they simply never existed.

If "woke" is on your radar you're living the good life. If you want to re-spec, your time might be spent on restoring damaged ecosystems or helping feed homeless.

Unless you just want to blame people who were previously kids, (aka autonomous adults) for shifting global priorities as if they shouldn't be allowed to prioritise that. In which case, lolwat.

I'm just a software guy and I don't claim to be saving the world with how I live my life. I like tech is all.

Maybe the woke people can go feed the homeless and stop making physics phds write ideological essays about social issues. Then everyone wins.

Yeah, it seems like people are just trying to find something to disagree with. It is absolutely true in the social sciences. Eugenics anyone? There are mountains of shit science out there that is rooted in the bias of the scientist.

Almost everyone that has kids actively practices eugenics (unless you literally have unprotected sex with literally everyone).

"the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Developed largely by Sir Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, eugenics was increasingly discredited as unscientific and racially biased during the 20th century, especially after the adoption of its doctrines by the Nazis in order to justify their treatment of Jews, disabled people, and other minority groups."

uhhhh, no.

Funny enough, it’s the Jews that extensively practice eugenics these days.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dor_Yeshorim

> Its objective is to minimize, and eventually eliminate, the incidence of genetic disorders common to Jewish people, such as Tay–Sachs disease.

The OP was just saying that most of the non-ineffable things about love are natural selection, and that what the eugenicists wanted was already happening naturally. Nature is cruel after all.

"actively practices" is the polar opposite of natural selection.

To wit: "Charles Darwin popularised the term "natural selection", contrasting it with artificial selection, which in his view is intentional, whereas natural selection is not."[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

> “ A STEM creative is anyone interested in and thinking about questions in STEM, period. We use the term STEM creative to highlight and emphasize that one does NOT need to be a “scientist” in order to launch a #HotScienceSummer project. You don’t even need a STEM or any degree!”

It seems like a science engagement project rather than an attempt to do actual scientific research.

Yes, and if their banner ads for donations focused on that then many of would be more comfortable donating. Our concern is their deceptive ads that give the impression that Wikipedia is struggling to pay the bills for serving Wikipedia.

Sorry to ask in multiple places, but people keep discussing this but this isn't talked about at all in the OP. Was the link changed?

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