But after 1933 he still wasn’t limited by his place of birth.
And I still see an historical parallel, as blacks in America aren’t denied jobs, or education.
Well, blacks are not denied an education for those of them who are not stifled by various cultural barriers to them even seeking an education. And for the most part, blacks are less frequently denied jobs than previously.
Are blacks Denied an education? No, denied is too harsh of a word and black is the wrong description. Poor people, which blacks are overrepresented in, get a much crappier education than the rich, which blacks are underrepresented in. By way of the income distribution I would say that yes, blacks get a much crappier education than whites.
Outline for us exactly what this 12 foot wall consists of. Let’s look at Joe BlackKid who has an interest in science and the aptitude to match. What specifically is laid in his path to prevent him from pursuing his goal? Compare that to Jim WhiteKid from the same socio-economic background. Tell us all about this 12 foot wall. Is Bill-Bob WhiteMan just waiting at that wall to knock Joe BlackKid back to where he belongs? I want some details.
Which is why I’ve said, several times in this thread, that we should give money to the poor for education. I’d also agree without hesitation that we need to fix the inner city/poor schools in this country.
What claim am I making that is so spectactular, FinnAgain? I love the 'Dope, but the pedantic exercise of digging up “cites” for every picuane thing is not my cup of tea.
Do you accept that different people experience the world differently? Yes or no.
Do you accept that different experiences will affect the way we observe the world? Think about problems? Go about solving problems?
If you say “no”, then I feel that it is you who is making a claim of the outrageous. Because I know that a Holocaust survivor feels differently about things than a white supremacists. I know that an obese man on welfare has a different perspective on the world than a world-class athelete. I know the children of priviledge experience a different world than the children of abject poverty. I know these things to be self-evident.
You are a male of Jewish heritage with an interest in cognititive linguistics, yes? Can you think of anything in your past–perhaps your childhood, something you experienced as a young man–that you can say put you on your present course? Did you come out of the womb wanting to be a scholar, or was there someone in your life who encouraged you to pursue academics? Do you think you would be an intelligent person if your household didn’t have books? If you had been born a woman, in an ultra-conservative family? If you had been severely abused by your parents? If you had been raised to believe, as the Amish do, that learning beyond the 8th grade is “prideful” and thus sinful?
Why do you think your abilities and interests would transcend your culture and upbringing? That is an incredible argument.
But this is a cop-out, though. If I say the sky is purple and then you say the sky is brown, why is it incumbent on ME to provide proof but not you? Your claim is just as “wacky”. In fact, it is even moreso because one can find see how environment shapes our path in life (George Washington Carver probably wouldn’t have been an plant scientist if he hadn’t been born in a rural area and hadn’t been too handicapped to work as a slave hand…Edward Jenner perhaps would not have discovered the vaccine if he had been a city doctor instead of a country one…environmental science as we know it would probably not exist if Rachel Carson had not worked as an aquatic biologist with the federal government.)
If socioeconomics plays a role in science, as you admit it does, then why is the importance of culture and environment so hard for you to swallow?
Who’s moving goal posts now?
If you can’t imagine not being able to get your ideas out even now, post-internet, you aren’t using your imagination. Do you think the people in People’s Republic of China possess the same internet that we do, here in the free world? Do you think Soviet Russia would have allowed a free exchange of ideas via internet, if the country still existed?
I can also imagine being hampered by language. Will a Kenyan physicist who only speaks Swahili receive the same audience as a British physicist? If a Polish chemist only publishes in Polish journals, will she be as well known as the German chemist who only publishes in German journals? I know an German microbiologist who did not get tenure mainly because his papers were all published in European journals, and the tenure committee was comprised of Americans who couldn’t read anything other than English.
Will they publish in peer-reviewed online journals? Or create their own websites? Does it matter which route they take? Will they have the same advantage as a scientist who doesn’t have to publish under a pen name?
And this is an outlandish claim.
Does culture shape personality? Yes or no.
Does personality shape self-determination? Yes or no.
Does self-determination shape how one deals with adversity? Yes or no.
Why do you think Jewish folks have done so well in the sciences, FinnAgain? If what you say is true, we should expect the list of the Nobel Prize winners to reflect the population at large, correct? Why doesn’t it? Is it all just a coincidence of geography?
You’re shifting again. You asked me to speculate on Einstein, Newton, and Curie–known of which are Americans. And I don’t understand how you can possibly say that Madame Curie would have still discovered radium if she had been born in Saudi Arabia. Perhaps you don’t know how bad a place Saudi Arabia is for women?
But he was a Jew who went to college, correct? He had well-educated parents, correct? No told him that Jews were inherently stupid, correct? His skin color would not have barred him from lecture halls or libraries, right?
Why haven’t we seen any black Einsteins, if culture and environment don’t play any kind of role in what kind of person we will be? Why haven’t we seen any black US presidents? Any female Robert Feynmans?
And as I asked before, if you can buy the argument that socioeconomics play a role in what kind of scientist you will be, why can’t you buy the argument that culture and environment are also important?
If we were talking about America, why did you mention Einstein, Newton, and Curie? Why talk about a “global community of scientists”, if we’re only talking about Americans?
Great. I agree.
I don’t think anything is inevitable.
Again, this is a facile statement. First off, “well” is subjective. The reporters at CNN, FOX, and MSNBC all think they are doing “well” and yet their stories are all different (some vastly different).
In the readings of some of the “good” history books, I’ve noticed that historians will unintentionally interject their perspective into their writings. For instance, in reading about Africa, I have seen sub-Saharan peoples referred collectively as “black Africans” , while Europeans are described as “Europeans”, Asians as “Asians”, and Pacific Islanders as “Pacific Islanders”. Even Jared Diamond does this in GGS. What perspective is revealed in such writing? Is it an objective voice? Did the historian do a “bad” job?
I think it is impossible for humans to be completely objective. We can strive for it as much as we want to–and we should–but there will always been signs of our particular perspective in whatever we produce.
True, but there would be some commonality between them right? Or the “Jewish” label would be meaningless.
Of course it’s a spectrum, then again so are a lot of things we categorize. Maybe there isn’t much difference between “Jewish” culture and “mainstream American” culture. But does that mean these things don’t exist?
That one “western” scientist would not have made any headway if local scientists didn’t lend a hand. A foreign scientist doesn’t change policy. He works with people in the community, who then evoke change. And this is the way it should be.
I think you avoided the question, but that’s okay.
Well, I don’t think there’s a lot of systematic bias going on, but science is rife with politics just like any other human arena. And there have been cases where scientists have had a hard time getting published for reasons other than the validity of their findings. The review process is not a completely objective one, even though people like to proclaim it is.
Yes, but how do you know they aren’t the exceptions? How many Russian scientists got so frustrated that they decided to give up on science all together? How many of them fudged their data so that their bosses would pat them on the head and let them publish? How many of them chose to pursue questions they were only half-interested in, simply because their real passion was deemed “unproductive”? How many of them defected to other countries only to discover that their ideas had already been discovered?
We will never know the answers to these questions.
A swamp is a wetland, but a wetland isn’t a swamp.
Um, are you asking this seriously? Because you just said you understood how important socioeconomics are. If you’re too broke to afford a computer, you can’t log onto the 'net, right?
If your parents don’t believe in newfangled technology, you aren’t going to have a computer to log onto the net, right?
If the nearest library is 30 miles away, wouldn’t that prevent you from reading a book? At least compared to someone who lives just across the street from one (as I do)?
If your culture discourages travel and curiousity about the outside world (like the Amish), your persective is going to be very different than a sophisticate in Manhattan, who did a stint in Europe during college and visits Israel every summer.
No, there are no signs saying “You Can’t Study Science”. But that doesn’t mean that access is equal, or that every intelligent person has the same chance of becoming a scientist as the next intelligent guy.
It wouldn’t say today, but what about tomorrow? The TSS ended in 1972 (IIRC). Doesn’t that almost count as “today’s day and age”?
Who decides what’s proper? Who decides what’s correct? Didn’t they think they were being good scientists? Were they wrong based on their own standards as well as ours?
Anything showing that there isn’t a single population in the US that has been underserved by science.
It might. If I’m a Kenyan dendrologist (tree scientist) and I’m having a problem diagnosing a problem with a tree native to eastern Africa, I might be better off asking a fellow east African dendrologist before asking you, someone who’s thousands of miles away and has never seen the tree I’m studying.
If I’m a Kenyan hydrologist and I want to study the effects of Kenyan farming on an adjacent prarie, will I consult a white Jewish hydrologist living in NY for ideas about how to talk to the people? What would the white Jewish hydrologist know about Kenyan farming culture that I, as a rural Kenyan, wouldn’t know?
You may very well understand what I’m talking about. You may even have advice. But your perspective is a different one, not necessarily the one that I need.
Of course you can. But then again, this hinges on you having been educated “properly”. I learned about the TSS not in a science class, but in an English class–an elective. I imagine that there are a lot of scientists who have never heard about the TSS and have never taken a course in ethics (I haven’t). How can scientists know that they are doing things “right” when they aren’t even taught what is “wrong”?
Even within the US, different schools educate their students in different ways. A biology major coming out of Indiana University will have learned different things than a biology major coming out of Bob Jones University, for instance. Will the science they produce be the same, or will it be different? Inquiring minds want to know.
By the way, this quoting-each-other-and-responding thing is getting fucking massive. Maybe we should agree to disagree before we kill the hamsters?
If you make a claim, a sweeping massive generalization about ‘human nature’, it’s perfectly legit to ask for a cite.
Yes, and yes.
But do you accept that influence is not control?
But, for instance, a child born with a silver spoon in his mouth can find out what grinding poverty is like. Our initial limitations, paradigms, and worldviews are not immutable.
Yeepers.
Actually, I could point to a few instances in college, but not childhood. I wanted to be a doctor up until sophmore year of college.
Actually, my parents always remarked that most of my pressure and drive was self-generated.
Yes, but obviously nurture plays a large role as well. (Which is, of course, to assume I’m an intelligent person now 
)
Would it have been more difficult in those cases? Yes. But limitations are not a death sentence, and they can be overcome. Heck, I seem to remember some Amish coke dealers recently 
I guess we’re even… I think it’s a rather incredible argument that your abilities and interests cannot transcend your enviornment.
Well, as I said, what has been true of the world, especially in terms of information flow, is no longer true. A city doctor can, indeed, become interested in country issues. And vice versa. And, of course, if someone was interested in the sciences
Enviornment may help shape things, but it is not immutable, and it is not the sole factor.
Because one cannot get more money by force of will, but one can reshape their worldview in such a manner.
Not me. I’ve been pointing out that, as you noted, current scientific trends are different from previous ones. Heck, current social trends are too. Information is the deciding factor, as I see it.
Well, we are talking about American scientists and why they need to be diverse, or Chinese? Besides, no, Chinese dissidents don’t have an easy time of it, but there are, indeed, ways for them to circumvent their state’s control.
What is allowed, and what actually goes on, are two different matters.
These seem to be different issues. English is the new lingua franca. Yes, speaking/writing in it will give one advantages on the global stage, and there’s no real reason that a Kenyan couldn’t learn if it he/she wanted a global audience. Just like, if I wanted to convince Kenyans of something, it might behove me to learn their language, or at least find someone who did to translate for me.
I seem to remember Bourbaki being rather well received, and he was the Cecil Adams (in more ways than one) of the math community.
Is it? One isn’t allowed self determination if they’re from a certain culture?
“We shouldn’t expect too much out of him, he’s just an [insert group name]?”
In all cases yes, with qualifications. Those can help shape things, but there are other factors. And even if they shape things, things can be re-shaped. Influence is not control.
Actually, I’m curious as to why you think they’ve done so well in the sciences. But, even if there is an influence within the “Jewish community”, some of the Jew Tang Clan don’t become scientists. As you stated, my calling is towards language and its uses. Would that not imply that I’d ‘transcended’ whatever cultural forces might’ve influenced me to become a scientist?
Not shifting, more saying that I might’ve used bad examples as the scope of the OP was, I beleieve, dealing with America.
And I do indeed know how bad Saudi Arabia is for women. I also know that those who feel strongly enough have a way of getting around most ‘controls’. Some Saudi women leave the country, after all.
I’m not sure about nobody ever telling him anything bad about Jews, but yeah, I’d wager all that is correct.
Well, to be fair, we’ve only seen one ‘Einstein’, although perhaps Hawking would be up on that level. Still, shall we break them up as “Jewish” and “gentile” or put them together as “white”?
I’d also argue that it’s a function of numbers. If there are few blacks who go into the sciences, there’s a smaller pool out of which to get potential ‘Einsteins’.
I haven’t said that they’re not important, I’ve said that they aren’t immutable. Poverty, for the most part, is. One cannot simply create money, but one can work on changing one’s mind.
Well, I think that there are two issues at play.
One, is whether or not the American community of scientists is at peril because of its demographics. The second is whether or not people in whatever culture they’re born in, are limited to that culture and have no real self determination. I apologize if I conflated them.
Perhaps… perhaps not. I do think that when pressure is right, things happen. We often see multiple people discovering the same scientific findings at the same time, totally on their own. But I suppose that may very well get into its own GD territory and seems to be a quite seperate tangent.
They may think they’re doing well, I don’t always
Yep. Or at least, not as good as job as one would like.
But we can also be aware of those influences and attempt to combat them.
I’ve argued elsewhere that, to a large degree, it is. Our fictional Georgian and Gothamite Jews might very well have much, much, much more in common with people who they live with than with each other.
I’d say that yes, it does.
I think that define what ‘culture’ a ‘group’ has is essentially a No True Scotsman affair.
But the western scientists still took an interest, did the research, and got in touch with the the “foreign” scientists, no?
I thought I answered the question, so there! 
Perhaps… I studied under a few editors of some heavy peer reviewed journals, and although there might very well have been politicial/ideological factors at work, I didn’t ever get the sense that there were cultural factors at work. Maybe I just didn’t see 'em.
Indeed, we won’t. And I’m sure that there are many who did not transcend their culture’s limitations, but there were also some who did.
Okay, but still, wiki lists wetland types as
* bog or moor or muskeg (peatlands)
* mangrove swamp or mangal
* marsh
* fen
* carr
* swamp
* bayou or slough
* constructed wetland
I’m not aware of any of those being in Manhattan.
When I was in Manhattan and too poor to afford internet access, I used public libraries. When I was in London and too poor to afford internet access, I would sometimes walk onto local college campuses and use their connections.
If you don’t leave your house, then yes, right.
Would it make it more difficult? Yes. But these limitations can be dealt with.
True, to a certain degree. But there are some children born into the Amish world who rebel and leave. Sometimes, as well, perspective can be changed by interacting with the words of someone with a different perspective. Ayn Rand produced many a Randroid.
Elaborate on this please.
I don’t think so, to be honest. But I wasn’t alive then, so I can’t really tell you with any authority.
Why, I decide what’s proper and correct, of course
Are modern ethical guidelines set up to prevent such things happening again? I had thought that they were. Am I wrong?
Well, I could do that simply by pointing to initiatives designed to limit, say, global warming; something which would affect everybody. Or do you have a more specific meaning in mind in this discussion?
But what if I’ve read all about those trees? Or I was to go and visit Kenya and look at them myself?
In terms of talking to them, the Kenyan would know better. But in terms of doing the science, if both had access to all the data I wouldn’t see a problem.
But not necessarily not the one you need, either.
I’d most likely agree.
Education for all! (tiny American flags for others)
I’d wager that depending on how strongly they cleave to what they were taught, and how willing they are to look into other points of view, their results will vary.
Monstro: I’m just finding it too hard to follow the quote/conter-quote debate you and Finn are having, and I can’t figure out from your posts what you think about the core debate in this thread. Where do you come down on:
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Are these types of scholarships, designed speficially to be given to minorities (or underrepresented groups) consistent with the recent SCOTUS ruling on Affirmative Action (Gratz v. Bollinger, 2003)?
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Legality issues aside, do you think it’s good public policy in the US in 2005 to have scholarships for which only minorities (or underrepresented groups) are elligible? (Assuming that there would still be publicly funded scholarships targetted at economically disadvantaged students, and that currently legal AA policies geared toward attracting minority students would still be in place. And by saying “public policy”, I mean using public funds. I’m not concerned with what private individuals might do with their own money.)
I don’t want to “agree to disagree” because I think you’ve misunderstood my whole point and I’d like to clarify.
FinnAgain, if this whole time you thought I was arguing that culture, environment, race, etc. “control” rather than simply affect the science people do–then you’ve been arguing a strawman the whole time. I never once said that we are prisoners of our circumstances and that we can never transcend the obstacles of our environment. George Washington Carver was born into chattel slavery and still did great things. He definitely transcended something. My point is that it is unreasonable to expect that scientist A will have the same ideas as scientist B, especially if the two scientists have very different life experiences. No, influence is not control. Never said it was.
I have never made a massive sweeping generalization about human nature.
Isn’t nurture a function of culture and environment?
I think it is. And unless you can convince me it isn’t, I would say I win our argument. Because that’s all I’ve been saying the whole time.
Do you accept that they’ve done well, or are you questioning me on this point as well? Because if you have to even debate this simple truth, then I don’t know if I can convince you about anything.
I think Jews have done well in academia (including the sciences) for the same reason that black Americans have done well in the entertainment sector. Culture. I can’t think of any other good explanation. Can you?
I suppose it’s kinda hard to think about science being so influenced by culture and what not, but what about engineering? Do you think inventors and designers see the same problems, regardless of their environments and positions within them? Do you think Robert Moses would have had the same impact on Mahattan if he had grown up as a poor Harlem resident, well familiar with urban blight? Would Eli Whitney have invented the cotton gin if hadn’t been born the son of a cotton farmer? Would Madame CJ Walter have deigned to invent hair relaxer if she had born with straight hair? Or if she had lived in a culture that prized curly hair over straight? Could she have invented the cotton gin, if she had been born in the right time and place? I don’t know, you don’t know. But surely you can see how environment and culture presented different ideas to these people.
If I were running an engineering firm, I would desire a diverse pool of engineers to choose from. By extension, then, I would also desire a diverse pool of scientists if I were running a laboratory. The argument in support of diversity works for both realms, IMHO.
Well I guess I still can’t wrap my mind around your reasoning then. If scientist A and scientist B both can transcend the limitations of their childhood/culture/whatever, why isn’t it reasonable to expect that they might have the same ideas? If they both read the same journals and are interested in the same problems, couldn’t they be very similar indeed?
Well, I still see your statement about scientists A and B as a rather sweeping generalization about human nature, but such is life.
Not exclusively, of course.
Well, I’d hope that me “winning” this argument isn’t going to hinge on whether or not I convince you. Maybe we should just use pistols at dawn?
I was questioning why you believe they have.
Yes, a culture which values eduation will tend to produce more educated people, but those who fourish will most likely do so based on their own talent. I’d also think that we’ve got too small a sample size to draw many conclusions from.
Possibly. If they’re interested in knowledge for the sake of knowledge or if, for instance there’s an economic advantage to tapping a particular market.
Yes, but I also don’t see that those influences are exclusive to those communities. My mother, for instance, has very curly hair, and even though her mother kept telling her that she looked adorable with it, she wanted nothing more than to have straight hair. By a similar token if there was a demographic study which showed that there were lots of people with curly hair who wanted straight hair, maybe even a straight haired inventor would smell profit. Or, as another example, I am interested in the problems facing the planet’s rain forests, but I’ve never been to one.
And as I see it, the counter for diversity of backgrounds is a diversity of information to be supplied to those scientists.
I think we’re coming at this problem from different angles.
Oh, here you go, FinnAgain:
For the same reason that my twin sister and I don’t have the same ideas, even though we’ve had similiar life experiences and upbringing. If even my sis and I don’t have the same ideas (she has always loved the microscropic scale of things, while I have liked “big picture” concepts, even when we were kids…so it makes sense that she studies diseases now and I study ecosystems), then how can I assume that you–a white Jewish male who lives in the northeast and likes studying language–will have the very same ideas as me–a black woman who lives in the South (questionably) and likes studying bugs and animals? How can I assume that scientist A is just like scientist B? Wouldn’t that require an extraordinary degree of coincidence?
Morever, why should we have the same ideas? Isn’t it great that you have your point-of-view and I have mine? If we had the very same wealth of knowledge, how would we ever learn anything from each other?
But one thing I don’t think you understand: Just because you can transcend a barrier doesn’t mean you will, even with self-determination. George Washington Carver transcended his status as a poor, orphaned, handicapped slave. But there may have been hundreds of other guys in a similar circumstance, blessed with the same degree of intelligence, who weren’t lucky to have a slave owner like his. There are such things as barriers that are impossible to overcome by sheer determination alone. And that’s when “helping hands” become necessary.
I’m just curious how one would go about nurturing someone by excluding culture and environment. The moment I pick up a baby and it starts to wail, culture dictates how I will handle the situation. Can you elaborate on how nurture is not the exclusive domain of culture and environment?
But education is what produces the talent, correct? Einstein would not have been a physicist if no one had ever taught him calculus, correct? The man certainly had innate qualities–I’m not saying he didn’t–but the qualities he developed are directly tied to the instruction he received and the environment around him.
Why do you think the sample size is too small? We’ve had, what?, perhaps one hundred years of “modern science”? If 1972 is a long time ago to you (I wasn’t alive back then either, but most scientists in the world today were), then surely you think 100 years is enough time to see patterns and trends.
I never said they were.
Sure, but how long would that have taken? CJ Walker developed her products not simply because she smelled profit, but because the “problem” of nappy hair had vexed her for years. According to the legend, she developed the original potion overnight, gradually perfecting it as she used it on herself. I can’t assume a straight-haired inventor would have gone the same route. Perhaps their strategy would have been disastrous because it would been more profit-driven and the whole endeavor would have fizzled out before it had caught on.
We can spend a million years speculating on what-ifs. But surely you aren’t arguing that a white woman with long flowing hair was just as likely to invent hair relaxer as a black woman fed-up with hot combs and hankerchiefs?
Do you think your interest in rain forests is the same as an indigenous Brazilian’s who’s always lived in rain forests? Don’t you think your solutions to the problems facing rain forest might be strikingly different?
Am I saying that’s impossible for you and the Brazilian to see eye-to-eye? No. But will your ideas be the same? I’m 100% sure they won’t be.
Where will the diversity of information come from, if all scientists have the same background? Will you benefit more in your inquiry about rain forests from a scientist who’s worked in rain forests for over 30 years, or one who’s just read a bunch of books about them? Which one will have more information? How do you judge which information is more important, more valid?
I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know. But if they are breaking the law, then they should be dismantled.
Yes, I do think they are alright within reason. At least when it comes to fields tied strongly to public interest, where it can be shown that the background of the practitioners is an important factor. Public health or law enforcement are areas like this. If the federal government feels that certain minority groups are being underserved and that sponsoring programs targeting this population would also confer benefits to the greater public, then I’m all for it. Even if it means setting aside funds strictly earmarked to a certain population.
Now, if the federal government is setting up scholarships so that more minorities can just get into college, with no greater goal in mind, then I don’t think that this is a good way to spend the public’s money.
I’ll be happy to answer your questions in a bit, but probalby not today, and maybe not tomorrow. Right now, this thread just doesn’t seem like much fun. I’ll get back to you in a bit.
Wow… I had no idea that Manhattan had a marsh. Neat.
~evil grins~
Should I rest my case right now?
That you can come from the same enviornment, the same family, heck, the same sperm and ovum and still choose your own ways has been my point. Perhaps you and I’ve been agreeing more than we know?
The very same ideas? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not, as no two people have the same exact ideas. But, obviously your twin sister doesn’t either. So if viewpoints are individual, why do groups matter? And if twins see the world differently, what’s to guarantee that people who happen to be part of a ‘group’ would have any real ideological commonality?
Yes, but why does scientist A have to be just like scientist B? Can’t we still achieve diversity, wasn’t that the point?
You’re confusing me now. (Hey! No jokes. :p)
If everybody has different ideas, then there is no need to have people from different ‘groups’ because they’ll just have different ideas anyways. It still seems as if taking the pool that you have and exposing them to a diverse set of data would work just fine.
Is there something I’ve missed in your reasoning?
No, I do understand that. Which is why I’ve said that education, including continuing education for professionals, is necessary.
Agreed, which is why I believe that funding for education is necessary.
Are we really disagreeing? It seems that we agree on many points here…
Sure. Parents who break the mold. Bad mothers who kill their kids. Permissive parents who let anything go. Etc… Although there are commonalities, there is also divergance, and individual parents can indeed buck the established trends.
Sure, you can decide, or can read a book which makes you decide, that you should let the baby cry to show that it can’t control you with its demands. Or you could think that you should rock the baby and try to comfort it. Or a million other things, which may be influenced by your history but may also not be limited by it.
Yes and no.
To a degree education matters, but I started my education as a pre-med student and then decided to switch to an English major’s degree. Perhaps Einstein’s wonderment about how the world worked would have been enough for him to have gone out to the library and taught himself calculus. Newton, after all, invented calculus.
What I mean is that we have a small sample size of the total Jewish population who self-select to go into the sciences. And although, certainly, there is pressure in many Jewish families for children to get a higher education, I’ve seen no convincing studies
Or, in other words, the fact that many of those who do well are Jewish doesn’t prove that many Jews have done well. I’ve seen a study or two which hinted at certain bloodlines’ preformance, but nothing which seemed all that definitive to me.
But if they’re not exclusive, then there’s no need to look for them only there.
What about a straight haired inventer with a curley haired sister, or girlfriend? Or one who read an article and got really interested?
Probably not, no. But then again, the polio vaccine wasn’t invented by someone with polio, either.
Depends. If I get interested enough in their specific problems wouldn’t it make sense for me to speak with them myself?
But we’ve already seen that even twin sisters don’t have those 100% similar ideas. So why look for them in other places where they’re even less likely? I guess I just don’t understand that focus.
Education, of course
Maybe both? Maybe one who’s read a lot of books about them which were written by people who worked in them for over 30 years.
That’s hard to say before you have the information, which is why one should learn as much as possible.
Anyways, I think we’re coming close to wrapping up our discussion. If you think there’s more to be said feel free to post, and I’ll do my best to answer it in a few days. It’s just felt like this thread is draggin’ like the butt of a 500 pound man running a marathon.
Thanks. I wasn’t so much interested in extending the debate as just seeing where you stood on the issue.
Yes, I agree that is an important distinguishing point.
Bah, I got here too late. I happen to live on the salt marsh, so the power of the Allfather compelled me to weigh in about just how cool it really is.
Aren’t these scholarships for non-science graduate students? As far as I know, all graduate students in the sciences get tuition waivers and stipends (e.g. the award would be useless).
In the hard sciences for PhD programs, yes, that’s usually true. It was for me, and I remember we always used to say that if you got accepted but didn’t get a tuition waiver, the schools was saying: “Sure! You can come here… as long as you pay!”
But this is not true in a schools where students enter an MS program first, then a PhD program. This is particular true in engineering.
It’s amazing how many people feel that government intervention is needed whenever a white man is the victim of some racial injustice. Black people have a 90% lower life expentancy; women receive 80% of male salaries; hispanics have 40% of the college graduation rate; gays are twice as likely to be the victim of a violent crime* - Hey, what are you gonna do? It’s a shame but these things happen. The government shouldn’t get involved.
But let a white boy be denied a college scholarship and suddenly principles are involved and it’s time for the Justice Department to get in the fight.
*All figures made up for rhetorical purposes. Blacks do have a lower than average life expentancy, women do receive lower than average salaries, hispanics do have a lower college graduation rate than non-hispanics, and gays do have a higher crime victim rate than straights. But I didn’t bother looking up the exact figures. I will therefore concede that my figures are probably not the correct ones while stating that the difference between my estimates and the actual figures has no bearing on the main point of my argument.
Yep.
That whole “slavery” thing - it happened yesterday. And the racism bit is still going strong. C’mon - to this day you still see White middle-aged men, executives, making racist jokes. They sure as shit don’t want to invite more people into their “club”.
I always figured Affirmative Action was a way of accomplishing reparations. Not perfect, but an effort that needs to be made.
I don’t know, though, if increasing the goodies at the far end of a long journey is sufficient to entice more people to make the trip - not until you tell everybody about it. I worked for an architectural firm that was chomping at the bit to find Black architects - there just weren’t any around. I’m betting there’s a paucity of minority undergrads in the hard sciences as well.
Well, I’ll counter your anecdotal evidence with mine. I’ve worked in three labs with chinese, indians, blacks, whites, greeks and hispanics all with advanced degrees. Maybe you’re working for the wrong companies? Heck, most of our houselceaning staff is white while our manufacturing and quality personel are all of a good mix of ethnicities…