# Things which are obvious within your field but controversial to the public
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 18, 2005, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204 "2005-03-18T20:53:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/81 "2005-03-21T03:19:34Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Or you might consider that he listed multiple reasons why there may be less woman in the sciences, that biology wasn’t the primary reason and that he never implied that there is a genetic reason for disparity between ethnic/religious groups in various occupations.
Here’s a [transcript](http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html) of Summers’ speech. What he said was:
> [@](#):
>
> There are three broad hypotheses about the sources of the very substantial disparities that this conference’s papers document and have been documented before with respect to the presence of women in high-end scientific professions. One is what I would call the-I’ll explain each of these in a few moments and comment on how important I think they are-the first is what I call the high-powered job hypothesis. The second is what I would call different availability of aptitude at the high end, and the third is what I would call different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search. And in my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described.
So Summers did give three possible reasons - essentially that women didn’t want to work hard enough to be scientists, that women were genetically incapale of becoming scientists, or that women were discouraged from becoming scientists by outside factors. And he ranked the likelihood of these three possiblities in that order. So I think it’s clear that Summers was arguing that women have themselves to blame if they aren’t scientists.
> [@](#):
>
> It is after all not the case that the role of women in science is the only example of a group that is significantly underrepresented in an important activity and whose underrepresentation contributes to a shortage of role models for others who are considering being in that group. To take a set of diverse examples, the data will, I am confident, reveal that Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking, which is an enormously high-paying profession in our society; that white men are very substantially underrepresented in the National Basketball Association; and that Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture. These are all phenomena in which one observes underrepresentation, and I think it’s important to try to think systematically and clinically about the reasons for underrepresentation.
Summers was the one making the comparison. He never said anything in his speech to indicate he was raising these examples to differentiate them from the underrepresentation of women in science, so we can presume that by grouping them together he considers them to be similar.
> [@](#):
>
> If it was really the case that everybody was discriminating, there would be very substantial opportunities for a limited number of people who were not prepared to discriminate to assemble remarkable departments of high quality people at relatively limited cost simply by the act of their not discriminating, because of what it would mean for the pool that was available. And there are certainly examples of institutions that have focused on increasing their diversity to their substantial benefit, but if there was really a pervasive pattern of discrimination that was leaving an extraordinary number of high-quality potential candidates behind, one suspects that in the highly competitive academic marketplace, there would be more examples of institutions that succeeded substantially by working to fill the gap. And I think one sees relatively little evidence of that.
Some would argue that the historical existence of the “seven sisters” counterpart to the Ivy League did exactly this. And to give a current example, several people have pointed out that Rutgers is doing exactly what Summers argued would be true if widespread discrimination existed - that university is actively recruiting women into its science departments that other universities are bypassing. They’re doing this not to create a female science department but to take advantage of a undertapped pool of talent.
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### Author:  [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/82 "2005-03-21T03:24:19Z")
> [@Mr. Goob](#):
>
> /hijack/
>
> Was that late 1990? I was on the LaSalle the other side of the pier. IIRC.
Yeah, that’s the incident. I understand that the Iwo had to get underway with volunteers manning the enginerooms once they got things cleaned up.
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### Author:  [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/83 "2005-03-21T03:24:55Z")
> [@Mr. Goob](#):
>
> /hijack/
>
> Was that late 1990? I was on the LaSalle the other side of the pier. IIRC.
Yeah, that’s the incident. I understand that the Iwo had to get underway with volunteers manning the enginerooms once they got things cleaned up.
---
### Author:  [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/84 "2005-03-21T03:32:15Z")
**Public works**
Here’s how a pothole hotline works: First, you get as complete a description as possible, _especially_ the street the pothole is on. If you’re not used to giving reports, you recite exactly what you’re going to say so you don’t stammer, trail off, repeat yourself, contradict yourself, etc. Then you call the number and give **one** report, making sure to include your phone number if you expect any kind of response (nearly all public offices only give a written response to a request that’s itself made in writing). The only time you make another call is if you realize you made a mistake or left something out. There is nothing you can say or do that will accelerate the process. Furthermore, jobs taking a long time or being subject to delays is so common that nobody bothers to keep track of why this or that job is taking so long.
NOTHING happens immediately. Filling a near-bottom rung job vacancy (like, say, mine) takes at least several months. Every single piece of correspondence I type is postdated _at least_ 3 days. A rush job means that someone will get on it maybe later today, and definitely no later than sometime tomorrow. Asking for or expecting an immediate response is pure idiocy. Your government is not a pizza shop, for crying out loud.
The mayor is a politician. That means that a signifigant portion of his job is saying the right things and promoting an agenda favorable to his constituents. All his great plans are just that, plans, which may or may not come to fruition druing his term. In other words, citing what the mayor said or planned when you have a complaint about the job _we’re_ is just silly. Oh, and being the mayor’s cousin, stepdaughter, or sister’s boss’ dentist’s roommate’s sparring partner will not make anyone in the system respond to your concerns any faster.
Ranting and raving to someone in the administrative office about the work done by someone in the field is like arguing a line call with the hot dog vendor _on a different court_. At best, it’s a stupid waste of time, at worst, it’s…well, a stupid waste of time. If you don’t know where to send your complaint, either calmly ask to be directed to the right place or send a written response (e-mail is fine), which will be routed to the appropriate section.
If you live on a private road and it gets flooded after every heavy rain, we can either: 1. Set up a meeting with an engineer to discuss how to redesign the road for better drainage, or 2. purchase it. That’s it. No amount of crying or begging will get a crew out there. Citing how granny can’t leave the house now won’t help. **It’s private property; we can’t touch it.** And no, that emergency draining we did 15 years ago does not obligate us to regularly maintain the road.
**Video games**
Nobody gives a damn about those stupid letters the manufacturers insist on plastering on about 15 places on every damn game. If a parent wants to know what games are appropriate for his/her kids, he/she does what parents have done long before warning labels existed…ASK!
The consensus on cheat devices is “If you don’t like them, don’t use them.” There is no massive movement to eradicate the dishonorable unfair repulsive fun-killing etc. etc. devices. The ONLY area in which cheat devices are universally abhorred is in online gaming (and I completely agree on this).
If there are some things that drive you absolutely nuts, it’s probably a good idea to avoid certain games. Other than that, there’s no solid evidence whatsoever that games make anyone more violent or aggressive.
Graphics and $1.50 get you a very pretty cup of coffee. Virtually every game for every 32-bit system has excellent graphics, and this alone is _never_ enough to sell the game. (In fact, “great graphics” has become the “nice personality” of videogaming…a warning sign that everything else about the game stinks.)
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/85 "2005-03-21T03:37:48Z")
PR: We don’t care about your complaint unless it might harm a) the directors b) the share price c) us.
Our _job_ is to make it seem as if we care if it harms a) the customers (he!he!) b) our staff (our “greatest asset” - he!he!) and c) the community.
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### Author:  [@The\_Hook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hook)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/86 "2005-03-21T05:11:43Z")
> [@Martin Wolf](#):
>
> What’s more likely is that many people, rightly or wrongly, do not consider psychology and sociobiology (the examples you were referring to) to be as ‘hard’ a science as physics or chemistry.
I thought psychology, at least in some of its practices, wasn’t considered a science because of its being non-[falsifiable](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability)?
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### Author:  [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/87 "2005-03-21T05:35:53Z")
> [@Sample\_the\_Dog](#):
>
> People who merely speak a different dialect from yours are not thereby violating the rules of English grammar.
>
> Appearing in a dictionary is not the criterion for status as a “real word”.
>
> The English language did not stop evolving when you learned your gradeschool vocabulary.
>
> No language has ever devolved into meaningless babble, and no language ever will.
>
> [. . .]
>
> Pure immersion methods of ESL instruction are not the best investment of education funding.
OOH!! Will you marry me?
Or at least help me out next time I have to spend several pages explaining why people who pronounce it “nucular” are not necessarily stupid or uneducated?
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### Author:  [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/88 "2005-03-21T05:41:13Z")
> [@The Hook](#):
>
> I thought psychology, at least in some of its practices, wasn’t considered a science because of its being non-[falsifiable](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability)?
Aren’t most sciences non-falsifiable? How do you falsify paleontology? Lots of things are science even if they don’t lend themselves to lab experiments.
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/89 "2005-03-21T07:00:03Z")
> [@Excalibre](#):
>
> Or at least help me out next time I have to spend several pages explaining why people who pronounce it “nucular” are not necessarily stupid or uneducated?
It’s the people who say 'erb that are truly stupid and uneducated. Especially if they also say aluminum!
Honestly, 'erb freaks me out - each time I hear it on telly, I shudder involuntarily.
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/90 "2005-03-21T07:14:32Z")
> [@Excalibre](#):
>
> Aren’t most sciences non-falsifiable? How do you falsify paleontology? Lots of things are science even if they don’t lend themselves to lab experiments.
Karl Popper’s concern was with instances in which theories are seemingly confirmed by ‘facts which, if examined more closely, turn out to be selected in the light of the very theories they are supposed to test’ ((_The Poverty of Historicism_, 111n). Besides the problem of partiality that this raises, there is for Popper (1991, 111) the problem of corroboration:
> [@](#):
>
> Of nearly every theory it may be said that it agrees with many facts: this is one of the reasons why a theory can be said to be corroborated only if we are able to find refuting facts, rather than if we are able to find supporting facts.
This led Popper (op cit, 134) to formulate his criterion of falsifiability for demarcating science from non-science, or empirical theories from non-empirical theories, (in contrast to the idea of verifiability favoured by the logical positivists):
> [@](#):
>
> [T]he discovery of instances which confirm a theory means very little if we have not tried, and failed, to discover refutations. For if we are uncritical, we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favour of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted.
While acknowledging that ‘ascertaining truth may be a very difficult business, and often a practically impossible one’, Popper (_The Myth of the Framework_, 175) asserts that ‘the meaningfulness of the term “truth” is affected by this no more than the meaningfulness of the term “father” is affected by any difficulty in ascertaining fatherhood’.
Turning to the social sciences, Popper (_Conjectures and Refutations_, 235) stresses that verisimilitude (approximation to truth) is especially important here, where we have to work with theories that are at best approximations, in other words, ‘theories of which we actually know that they cannot be true’. Our aim should be to strengthen the verisimilitude of our theories and explanations, and thus get nearer to the truth. At the same time, Popper found a place for more intuitive, even irrational, ways of addressing the problems that confront us: ‘even purely mythogenic explanations have performed a valuable function in the past in expediting our understanding of the nature of reality’. But only the rigorous discipline of putting forward our theories and our findings for critical discussion constitutes for Popper (_The Myth of the Framework_, 160) the scientific method:
> [@](#):
>
> As to the rationality of science, this is simply the rationality of critical discussion. Indeed there is nothing, I think, which can better explain the somewhat abstract idea of rationality than the example of a well-conducted critical discussion.
That’s why I like the SDMB!
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### Author:  [@MaryEFoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaryEFoo)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/91 "2005-03-21T09:05:20Z")
Court cases. There are **two main kinds of trial** heard by a judge (or judge & jury), plus some others.
One is the lawsuit: your car ran over my foot and I want you to pay money for medical expenses, permanent crippling, and pain. No one goes to jail. The case is between two economic entities (person and person, person and corporation, etc), and normally the damages are measured in money.
The other is the criminal trial: society represented by the prosecuting attorney says that you broke one of society’s laws, and will attempt to convince the jury (or judge), and attempt to get you the punishment (jail or fine) that is written into the law.
And then there is family court where divorces and support cases are heard. Most of the money issues involve making sure the kids have money to live on. This feels like punishment, but that is not the idea, it is to feed the kids (without involving the taxpayer).
And injunctions: Judge, make that person do, or stop doing, whatever. And probate, where the court oversees the distribution of property. Etc.
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### Author:  [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/92 "2005-03-21T09:15:35Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#):
>
> So Summers did give three possible reasons - essentially that women didn’t want to work hard enough to be scientists, that women were genetically incapale of becoming scientists, or that women were discouraged from becoming scientists by outside factors. And he ranked the likelihood of these three possiblities in that order. So I think it’s clear that Summers was arguing that women have themselves to blame if they aren’t scientists.
I think this is still a fine example of something that’s obvious in the field but controversial to the public - it has a noncontroversial meaning within the field, but apparently it’s controversial outside. “Different availability of aptitude at the high end” does not mean “women are genetically incapable of becoming scientists”; it means there’s greater variation in aptitude among men, and from what I’ve read, the evidence supports that claim. Men are more likely to have above average aptitude in this field, but also more likely to have below average aptitude.
> [@](#):
>
> Summers was the one making the comparison. He never said anything in his speech to indicate he was raising these examples to differentiate them from the underrepresentation of women in science, so we can presume that by grouping them together he considers them to be similar.
He said, “These are all phenomena in which one observes underrepresentation, and I think it’s important to try to think systematically and clinically about the reasons for underrepresentation.” He didn’t say those reasons were the same for every group he mentioned; in fact, he said they were diverse examples, and I’d expect the reasons to be diverse too.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/93 "2005-03-21T17:00:26Z")
yes, I really am a Black Belt in Taekwondo/Karate/ (fill in your martial art style here).
No, I really can’t jump flatfooted up onto the roof. I don’t care what you saw on Kung Fu Theater last Saturday night.
No, if I’m attacked by more than three people, I’ll probably get the shit kicked out of me. I’ll put some serious hurt on a couple of them, yes, but I won’t walk away whistling. I don’t care what you saw on Kung Fu Theater last Saturday night.
No, if someone fires a gun at me, I won’t be able to catch the bullet in my teeth and spit it back at him so hard, it’s like I shot him. I don’t care what you saw on Kung Fu Theater last Saturday night.
No, if someone attacks me with a knife, I’m going to be cut. Yes, I will probably be able to disarm him and damage him seriously in the process, but I’m going to take some damage as well. At least I can minimize that. I don’t care what you saw on Kung Fu Theater last Saturday night.
No, I’m not going to hit you. Why in the hell would you think I would want to hit you just because you found out I’m a Taekwondo instructor? That’s not only stupid, it’s rude as hell to boot. Here, let me give you a guest pass for 30 days free instruction in my school. Come find out what real martial arts is about and quit watching Kung Fu Theater on Saturday night.
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### Author:  [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/94 "2005-03-21T18:38:10Z")
Radioactive material does not glow(well, unless it’s really hot…).
You cannot detect ionizing radiation with human senses.
Radiation will not create giant lizards, people with super powers or cause people to grow extra body parts. It can give them cancer.
Everything that is not energy of some sort is made up of chemicals.
Just because I work with drugs doesn’t mean I can get you free Vicodin. I can, however, get you a discount on a jet engine.
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### Author:  [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/95 "2005-03-21T18:50:16Z")
In the same vein as the earlier comment on evolution, as a geologist the notion than a single Great Flood could be used to explain the depth, breadth and duration of the rock record kinda get us to, you know, giggling.
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/96 "2005-03-21T19:08:54Z")
All children can learn, but not all children can learn the same things at the same rate.
Some children require a great deal more attention than others do.
Teachers have a limited amount of instruction time for any given topic.
Mainstreaming may be held to be a success by social workers, activists, and some parents of special-needs children; but among classroom teachers it is considered to be one of the worst requirements in the last 25 years. Far, far too frequently the end result is that none of the students, including and especially the special-needs student, have their educational needs met.
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### Author:  [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/97 "2005-03-21T19:28:48Z")
> [@Clothahump](#):
>
> yes, I really am a Black Belt in Taekwondo/Karate/ (fill in your martial art style here).
>
> No, I really can’t jump flatfooted up onto the roof. I don’t care what you saw on Kung Fu Theater last Saturday night.
>
> No, if I’m attacked by more than three people, I’ll probably get the shit kicked out of me. I’ll put some serious hurt on a couple of them, yes, but I won’t walk away whistling. I don’t care what you saw on Kung Fu Theater last Saturday night.
>
> No, if someone fires a gun at me, I won’t be able to catch the bullet in my teeth and spit it back at him so hard, it’s like I shot him. I don’t care what you saw on Kung Fu Theater last Saturday night.
>
> No, if someone attacks me with a knife, I’m going to be cut. Yes, I will probably be able to disarm him and damage him seriously in the process, but I’m going to take some damage as well. At least I can minimize that. I don’t care what you saw on Kung Fu Theater last Saturday night.
>
> .
Oh. you are no fun. No magical kung-fu powers…bah.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/98 "2005-03-21T20:09:23Z")
I work with the State Department Of Transportation.
Everything we do is protested. By one or more groups.
Often, they don’t even _try_ to communicate with us before the picketing begins.
Also, put the blame for poor road planning on the State Legislature, not us. We send the road proposals that are laser-straight, & then every little Mayor or Chamber Of Commerce wonk in each little hick burg in the State wants the road to run through the center of town. When the Legislature is done, it does. And the previously straight road wiggles like a snake all over the map, and costs double the estimate, for which fact the Legislators dutifully blame the “wasteful” bureaucrats. :smack: :mad: :smack: :mad: :smack: :mad:
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### Author:  [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/99 "2005-03-21T21:13:22Z")
> [@+MDI](#):
>
> AI: the age of robotic overlords is not around the corner. It’s centuries away, if that.
Along those lines: A robot is an _autonomous_ mechanical agent. That means that it has sensors as inputs and internal logic to determine actions. If there’s a guy somewhere with a video screen and a joystick making it move, it’s not a robot. It’s just a really cool remote control car.
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### Author:  [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2005, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/100 "2005-03-22T00:51:07Z")
Most behavior problems are not hte result of children being under-challenged.
Just as often, children misbehave because they are feeling overwhelmed, because they like to be the center of attention, to impress the opposite sex, to see if they can, and because it would be funny.
The student is responsible for the quality of education they receive.
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