Jeff Montgomery edited untitled.tex  over 9 years ago

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\href{http://www.plosone.org/article/info\%3Adoi\%2F10.1371\%2Fjournal.pone.0102172}{Probably not} (<- this article details accounts of \textit{sexual misconduct in field work} involving biology, anthropology, and other social sciences, disciplines the authors above highlight as \textit{largely welcoming and open to women}). \href{http://www.emilywillinghamphd.com/2014/11/academic-science-is-sexist-we-do-have.html}{Emily Willingham} provides excellent analysis of the data presented in the paper and in the broader debate at hand. It turns out there are numerous discrepancies and avoided topics for analysis (e.g. salary figures often had statistically significant differences by gender; women more often reported lack of inclusion; more details in her post).   Likewise, \href{http://galileospendulum.org/2014/11/01/no-academic-science-hasnt-overcome-sexism/}{Matthew Francis} covered the story, emphasizing the need to actively address these still-existent problems and not ignore them: the importance of even a little explicit encouragement in the face of implicit discouragement is often all that's needed. The ever-emphatic \href{http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/11/01/yay-sexism-in-science-is-over/}{PZ Myers} rounds out the debate by breaking down the major reasoning and assumptions of in  the original paper, with characteristic gusto. So what exactly were the original authors thinking?\\  A handful of distributed scientists were able to challenge the key arguments of their paper using their own data as well as citations, in free time over the weekend. \\  Talk about peer-review.  Seriously though, what were they thinking? I would \textit{like to think} that this was actually a brilliantly orchestrated publicity stunt to get more attention on this critical issue. \textbf{After all, who is going to blog/tweet/counter-op-ed "Academic Science is Slightly Less Sexist than when Male Academics could still Smoke in Their Offices"?} Because when you look at the data, the background on this issue, and the immediate response from the community, it's obvious academic research isn't now some utopian meritocracy full of equality. There is still institutional and systemic biases. Whether its gender, race, sexual-preference, or need related, or tied up in the archaic publishing system that is all too easily gamed, we have a long way to go before things should be considered "fair". What might a fair system even look like?