9th Grade Girls Soldering | Hacker News Reader

9th Grade Girls Soldering

alum.mit.edu

12 pointsnmorell54 comments

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"Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /pages/sliceofmit/2014/07/15/yougogirl/ on this server."

Well, of course I don't have permission. I'm a dude, and there are already too many dudes in STEM. /sarcasm

This was a clever comment and arguably a hack. I do not appreciate being down-voted for it. Can we lighten up a little?

Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...

You can even just paste the URL and it will work. Apparently some clever-dick is looking at referrer information.

In today's world, it's valuable / necessary to teach a 2nd style of soldering as well: using a heat gun and solder paste to manually reflow surface-mount components. It's just as easy as using a soldering iron, and for many cases much easier! And it's the only way to solder modern chips.

Also I agree with JamesArgo, always use lead-free solder.

Use lead-free solder folks; I strongly believe we should keep lead solder the hell away from children.

Yeah but have you actually used lead-free solder? It'll increase the burns and also create goopy messes of melted plastic and the tears of children.

How dangoureous do you think lead is? Ignoring its temperature, lead is only danguarous if you injest it (or breathe it). I think 9th graders can handle not stick solder in their mouths and washing their hands when they are done (not that the minute exposure they would get otherwise would be noticable). If they cannot handle this, I have serious concerns about giving them soldering irons.

Or, you know, leave everyone to their own devices, and let people choose the fields that engage them.

Males and females are not equal, in metabolism, strength, ability, or anything else. They have equal rights, but this does not mean that they deserve equal representation in all fields. Those with the highest merit deserve representation. Trying to fight this simple fact is the height of folly.

amen.

> Males and females are not equal, in metabolism, strength, ability, or anything else.

More generally, people are not the same (I prefer "same" to "equal").

Or, you know, leave everyone to their own devices, and let people choose the fields that engage them.

blacks and whites are not equal, in metabolism, strength, ability, or anything else. They have equal rights, but this does not mean that they deserve equal representation in all fields. Those with the highest merit deserve representation. Trying to fight this simple fact is the height of folly.

Sure. West Africans are very successful in all forms of running, for example. Are you going to deny this?

How will they know if the field engages them without being exposed to it?

None of us here got recruited into the field, and we still found out that it engaged us, didn't we?

I got recruited. 4 times. I'd rather be a doctor, but that seems intimidating and I don't see a way to "break into" it.

Show me these magical affirmative action programs targeting straight white men.

Until you've demonstrated programming has some biological basis, this 'argument' is absolutely ridiculous.

I think it's less about ability and more about interest.

Right, that's what this fixes.

No, it isn't. You can't dictate interest.

It is trivially easy to influence interest. http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/06/25/more-women-pick-co...

This study is about stereotypes, not interest, not merit, not anything that's actually relevant.

You know what shows interest? A female willingly taking and passing CS courses. Not this bullshit.

What you need is a study showing how many women showed interest and then were talked out of it. http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156664337/stereotype-threat-wh...

> When female scientists talked to other female scientists, they sounded perfectly competent. But when they talked to male colleagues, Mehl and Schmader found that they sounded less competent.

Could it be that they, comparatively, are?

Nah. That would make too much sense.

Let's blame it on the all-powerful patriarchy, which we can't even prove to exist.

That's not insane at all.

It's the same women, in conversations with men vs other women, sound different.

Edit: you're the first person to mention the patriarchy, let alone blame it.

Yes, and the researchers aren't even considering the possibility that these women sound incompetent when talking to men, because they actually, comparatively, are.

They discount the most obvious explanation without even testing for it, and expect to be taken seriously. What a joke.

Women suddenly become less competent when talking to men?

The obvious hypothesis is that women sound less competent when talking to men because they are less competent than men, on average.

They don't sound less competent when talking to women because they aren't less competent than other women, on average.

Playing dumb won't help you win this argument. It will just make you look just as dumb as the researchers.

http://schmader.psych.ubc.ca/publications/2011/Talking%20sho... our male and female samples were matched by rank, discipline, and research productivity and impact

The particular men and women chosen for the study were not, objectively speaking, different in competence. This is a study of perceived competence.

> because they are less competent than men, on average.

Not necessarily in comparison to the specific researcher they're talking to. On average.

Reading comprehension is a great skill. You should look into it.

I was responding to your post: Yes, and the researchers aren't even considering the possibility that these women sound incompetent when talking to men, because they actually, comparatively, are. The researchers were investigating how much of the perceived competence difference was real and how much was a difference in perception only. So they controlled for actual differences, and found a large difference in the way equally-competent men and women are perceived.

You keep playing dumb. It's not working for you. It won't ever work for you.

The hypothesis is that the exhibited feeling of incompetence is because men are better than women on average.

How many times will I have to repeat this until you get it?

Oh it's you who has this hypothesis. I thought you were referring to something in on of the links I posted. So if that's your hypothesis, why not look for a study that tested it? http://www.economist.com/node/11449804 http://www.voanews.com/content/girls-get-better-grades-than-...

But aside from that, wouldn't you like to get the women are are actually good at math and science to get into STEM fields, even if they are a minority? I think that's a question we can actually do something about, even if we can't change how good women are at science. http://www.macleans.ca/general/girls-good-at-math-half-as-li... I'd like to encourage good female programmers, however many of them there are, to go into programming jobs.

Has changing goalposts ever worked for you?

I answered the original question first. If you don't like that paper, you can Google for more yourself. And yes, asking better questions works for me!

You answered a question about comparative scientist competence (which is highly objective, because it's judged on the basis of peer review of published work) with stats about elementary school grades handed out by teachers (which is highly subjective, because it's a virtually unchecked power, almost never judged by any outside auditor), not to mention the difference in age, task, environment -- basically every single criterion is different. It's not a question of liking anything. You're simply trying to move goalposts.

Judging by the various forms of intellectual dishonesty you've attempted thus far, I would gladly do my utmost to prevent anyone the least bit like you from finding employment anywhere near me for as long as I live.

This thread started with drz saying we should leave everyone to their own devices, and "those with highest merit deserve representation". I agree that this should be happening, but I disagree that it is happening. drz then claimed that you can't dictate interest. I disagreed. drz claimed that only taking and passing CS courses can "show interest". This is obviously false; if ever a woman was interested but then discriminated against, she might not pass the CS course. I submitted an article on stereotype threat, which is one reason that competent women might not succeed in class or industry. I think drz took this to mean that I thought women were, on average, as competent as men. I admit to getting confused at that last change in topic since I don't think it's relevant or interesting. No one in the original article, or anyone else in this conversation, has made that claim.

Men absolutely dominate in the 120+ IQ range, and high IQ is very strongly correlated with abstract reasoning.

But do 120+ IQ people dominate computer programming?

You're not going to do well in computer programming unless you can reason abstractly.

You make this statement with no evidence.

Programming is abstract reasoning. Apart from some syntax memorization, there's nothing more to it. Even design patterns are optional, and can be independently discovered.

While it's true that women and men aren't the same, I think that there are good reasons to believe the level of inequality we have now is not due solely to natural inclination. This video of Neil deGrasse Tyson on minorities and science is apropos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7ihNLEDiuM

leave everyone to their own devices

Tons of men are recruited to the field, why not women?

Show me these magical affirmative action programs targeting straight white men.

They're not magical. http://www.genengnews.com/insight-and-intelligence/women-sti... You don't need individual programs for men, it's the default. http://jonathanherzog.com/node/129 General trends http://www.businessinsider.com/7-things-keeping-women-out-of... Specific incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents

You do need individual programs for men as a valid counterpart for individual programs for women. Where are they?

I don't need an individual program for men because the industry is a mass program for men. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/09/19/...

So you can't deliver on your claim at all.

You can't show any individual program for men, because there is no individual program for men.

You lose by default.

Thanks for your time.

How is it different from affirmative action? Change the gender and get a better chance of being hired.

I believe the sentiment is to at least expose girls to these fields more than we have. Whether they enter them as a career is of course their choice.

The field isn't hidden. It's already exposed to males and females in equivalent amounts.

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