Sunday, November 11, 2018



Women in physics: Why there’s a problem and how we can solve it

The title above and the excerpt below show that people with nothing better to do are still chewing away at this old issue -- even though all the attempted "solutions" have failed -- as they admit below.

But the first issue is surely why it matters.  There are many women in physics so clearly those who are inclined towards a physics career can have one if they give it priority.  There is certainly a lot of official encouragement of it.  So the issue is not whether women can contribute to physics.  Many can and do. What is at issue is the PROPORTION of women in physics.  So why does THAT matter? The proportion of women in physics is low but what is lost by that?

Feminists claim glibly that many valuable potential contributions to physics by women are not being made and see that as the loss to us all.  But where is the evidence for that? Given that there are large numbers of women already in physics could it not be that those women who have a serious avocation for physics are already there?  It certainly seems possible so the feminist claim seems nothing more than an unproven assertion.  Some proof would be nice -- but I am not holding my breath.

But feminists are routinely uninterested in proof for their various assertions so my call for proof in this matter will cause eye-rolling only.

So the real motivation for concern would appear to be the old falsehood that all men are equal -- and women are just as equal.  If that were true it would make some sense to expect equal representation of women in  all occupations whatsoever.  But it isn't true. All men are different, not equal and men and women are systematically different too.  The fact that different proportions of men and women are found in almost all occupations is ample evidence of that.  When do we let the evidence count?

And the relevant difference between men and women in physics is plain to see.  Physics is math-intensive and women are woefully outnumbered in the top tiers of mathematical ability.  The leptokurtic distribution of female IQ -- and mathematical ability in particular -- makes the small average difference between male and female mathematical ability translate into a large difference in absolute numbers at the top of the range. Some women have made and will continue to make significant contributions to physical knowledge and understanding but they will ALWAYS be a small minority in physics.  Given the different abilities between men and women on average, it cannot be otherwise.  Attempts to "solve" the difference are flailing at the wind. Flailing will continue to go on but it will be just as unsuccessful in the future as it has been in the past.

Finally, I must say something about the specific article below.  They mention the paper by the terminally incorrect Alessandro Strumia.  But in all the condemnations of his wickedness that I have seen (e.g. here), nobody mentions the powerful statistical evidence  he presented.  They content themselves with emotional reactions -- which is one of the things Strumia accused them of!  Below is one of his graphs, showing how much more the work of male physicists is cited compared to the work of female physicists



Citations are the normal criterion of excellence throughout academe.  You can get a less extreme difference by including  arXiv articles, as Hossenfelder does, but such articles are not not peer-reviewed -- so that one has to resort to them to elevate the work of women is in itself something of a defeat.  Given their unknown quality, it seems likely that they are most often cited only to rebut them.

So how do the authors below reply to Strumia's careful research?  By mentioning that only three woman had received the Nobel prize in physics in the 117-year history of that prize. I would have thought that that fact rather supported Strumia! But in any case, thinking that selected instances can invalidate an average is a profoundly unmathematical way of thinking so is in itself surely an example of why women rarely do well in physics.  With friends like that ....



Women are still wildly under-represented in physics – but it doesn't have to be like that. Our special report looks at the steps we can take to improve things

WHEN we were 16 years old, my friend Karen and I were interviewed for an educational video. With our hair thick with styling mousse, pale blue eyeliner and misplaced teen swagger, we explained why we had chosen to study physics. We were the only two girls in our school that year who had. Our video was going to inspire other girls to do the same. We were going to change the world.

Thirty years on, it is safe to say our ambition failed. In 2016, no girls studied A level physics in almost half of the schools in England that admit girls. In the same year, just one-third of schools had two or more girls taking the subject. It is a similar picture across much of the world. Despite all the initiatives to attract more girls into physics, the proportion remains stubbornly low.

Physics and sexism has been thrust into the spotlight in recent weeks by the incendiary comments made by theoretical physicist Alessandro Strumia. At a workshop on gender in physics, of all places, at CERN near Geneva in Switzerland, he claimed that women were less capable than men at physics research. The day after he was suspended by CERN, Donna Strickland became only the third woman to receive the Nobel prize in physics in its 117-year history, sharing this year’s award for her pioneering work on lasers.

All this paints a picture of physics as a career that is unwelcoming to women to start with and isolating for many of those who do make it. But why is this still the case?

SOURCE






Young African-American Beauty Accused of Racism and Fired from Modeling Agency for Attending TPUSA Black Leadership Conference

Turning Point USA held its Young Black Leadership Conference in Washington DC in late October.



During the conference attendees were invited to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House.

President Trump was greeted with thunderous applause at the White House Friday from members of the Young Black Leadership Summit as he detailed how “America First” policies are imminently benefiting the African-America community.

Model Zoe Bethel attended the weekend conference and posted photos from the event.

After she returned home the young beauty was fired from her modeling agency. On top of that — The agency accused her of being a racist when she was fired!

Zoe is African American and conservative — And because of this she was fired from her agency!

SOURCE






Black Americans Thriving Under Trump/GOP

The party ended slavery and Jim Crow, and is now building an economy flush with jobs.

Frustrated at its party’s impotence in dealing with the issue of slavery, on March 20, 1854, former members of the Whig Party met in Ripon, Wisconsin, to form a new party; the Republican Party. Republicans considered slavery a moral evil and a stain on the character of our young nation, and just six years later a little-known Illinois Republican congressman named Abraham Lincoln won the presidency.

From its inception, the Republican Party has fought for equality for black people. The bloodiest war in American history began in large part because the Democrat Party violently opposed efforts to free black slaves. It was the Republican Party that passed the first Civil Rights Act in 1866 (struck down by a Democrat-appointed Supreme Court), and it was Republicans who secured the right to vote for blacks and women, and who led the effort to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

It is one of the greatest con jobs in history that Democrats now claim the title of defenders of black Americans, intentionally deceiving them with the outrageous lie that racist white Southern Democrats switched to the Republican Party in the late 1960s (as if it made sense that racists would flee to the party that just passed the Civil Rights Act they so loathed).

In reality, of course, it is the Republican Party that has fought, and still fights, for equality and prosperity for black Americans. And though they get little credit for it, Republicans are doing right by black Americans.   Joe Biden famously screeched that Mitt Romney, the most decent, milquetoast man to run for office in living memory, was going to put blacks “back in chains.”

Yet where are black Americans truly in chains? In the Democrat poverty plantations of cities like Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, Memphis, and St. Louis, where their hopes are crushed under generational poverty, high unemployment, sky-high murder rates, and gang violence. These are cities where Democrats have had free rein to implement their policies for decades, and blacks are the ones who suffer most.

The Democrat Party is the party whose leaders send their own children to elite private schools while striking down school-choice programs that have a strong record of educating poor minorities so they can escape the ghettos.

Of course, more than a third of black babies don’t get a chance to escape the ghettos because they never escape the womb. Democrats funnel more than $500 million a year to Planned Parenthood, an organization founded for the sole purpose of eradicating, through abortion and sterilization, blacks and other “undesirables.”

That’s all well and good, you may say, but what have Republicans done for black Americans lately?

For one, they continue to fight for school choice for mothers of poor black children. When Obama repeatedly defunded the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, it was Republicans who kept bringing the money back.

Under President Donald Trump, supposedly the most virulently racist president ever, black Americans, indeed all Americans, are experiencing a renewing of the American Dream. In October 2016, as we closed out the last few months of Obama’s eight year term, black unemployment stood at 8.6%. In less than two years under Trump, black unemployment hit 5.9%, a historical low.

After eight years of Obama there were 18.1 million blacks with jobs. Under Trump, it’s up to 19.3 million, a 1.2 million jump in two years.

And that’s just the beginning. Congressional Republicans passed, and President Trump signed, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, without a single vote from the Democrats. The new law created Opportunity Zones, which gave “tax incentives for businesses to invest in economically distressed communities, making them a powerful vehicle for economic growth and job creation.”

As job creation and personal wealth continues to grow in the black community, they will be able to look at Democrats and say, “You didn’t build that!”   Realizing that far too many young black men are in a revolving door when it comes to prison, Republicans have been relentlessly pursuing criminal-justice reform with the goal of rehabilitating those sent to prison, and putting them on the path to prosperity through education and work. Republican-led states like Georgia and Texas are leading the nation in criminal-justice reform, leading to historic lows in the number of black prisoners.

In 2016, as he made his final pitch to voters nationwide, Trump asked black Americans to give him a chance and vote for him, inquiring, “What the hell do you have to lose?!”

Trump ended up with 8% of the black vote in the 2016 election — not much, but still 2% higher than Romney.

Today, having seen the benefits of Trump’s tax-cutting, regulation-slashing, job-creating, pro-growth policies, as well as important symbolic gestures — like declaring Martin Luther King Jr.‘s burial site a national landmark (which Obama didn’t do in eight years) — Trump’s approval rating among blacks stands at a mind-bogglingly high 40%.

Democrats are desperate to recapture the narrative of Trump and the Republicans as white-robe clad, cross-burning racists, but it seems that more and more black Americans are seeing their lives improved by Republican leaders and conservative policies and realizing an important truth: The Democrat Party has never been their friend.

SOURCE






More black Muslim mayhem in Melbourne

What will it take to show the do-gooders that black Muslims are too much of a risk to have in Australia?  How many innocent people have to die?

A Melbourne cafe legend was stabbed to death during a terrorist's knife rampage through Bourke Street that injured two others before police gunned the Somali immigrant down.

Sisto Malaspina, 74, was murdered by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, as he ran to help what he thought was a car crash victim just blocks from his iconic Pellegrini's coffee shop about 4.20pm on Friday.

However, Khalif had deliberately crashed his Holden Rodeo that was loaded with gas canisters and set the car alight after mounting the pavement near the Swanson Street intersection.

By trying to do a good deed, Mr Malaspina became the murderous knifeman's first victim. Soon two others would also be stabbed before Khalif attacked police.

Video shot from the scene showed the frenzied attack that carried on for more than a minute as Khalif chased the officers around as they tried to convince him to surrender, before finally shooting him.

Police said Khalif was inspired by ISIS to commit jihad, but they were unsure if he had direct contrast with the terrorist group. ISIS claimed his as one of their own, but often falsely associate themselves with lone wolf attacks.

Khalif's passport was cancelled in 2015 after he was flagged as one of 300 potential security risks when he it was discovered he planned to travel to Syria.

An AFP spokesman said in a press conference late on Saturday morning that though Khalif was on their radar, police decided not to intervene. 'While he held radical ideals, he didn't hold a threat,' he said.

His family were known to counter-terror agencies and believed to have ties with North African extremist groups.

His brother Ali Khalif Shire Ali was arrested in November 2017 over an alleged planned New Year's Eve attack on Federation Square.

Heartbroken friends and longtime customers left floral tributes to the slain food icon outside the Pellegrini's, just down Bourke Street near the Exhibition Street intersection.

Staff were in shock and a sign on the door said the cafe would be closed until November 12, with police standing guard outside.

Mr Malaspina's body was on Friday seen lying in the street covered by a white sheet with a bare foot sticking out after bystanders unsuccessfully tried to save his life.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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