A thought provoking article from Quillette on the changing face of academia, full of surprising statistics, that can serve as a launching pad for discussions.
May be I missed it, but it did not see any discussion of the effect of misogynism/harassment/sexism/biases against women in society in general regarding the development of these traits in women in academia and elsewhere. As I got my Ph.D in Engineering in 1973, I was very aware of “truths” that were simply biases or excuses for discrimination. Here is, for example, a truth I was told right away in academia: my TIAA benefits were less than those of male faculty because “women live longer”. *I asked where are the statistics of life expectancy among female mechanical engineering professors for comparison? None, as I was the first woman in my mechanical engineering department at the time! But even assuming that it is a universal truth that similarly situated women live longer than men, when this “truth’ is used for discrimination in benefits, I surely object! So if you ask me, I am all for scientific truth, but I retain a nagging suspicion that it may be used inappropriately or out of context or that it is not based on good research. This attitude reflects my experience.
*This was found discriminatory and corrected a few years later.
Achieving objective equality (or fairness) is difficult and maybe an interesting research subject on its own. As your example shows, there are many ways to misuse the very subject of equality for its pursue. I personally see the quotas foreseen for women as something which has a higher potential for harm than use. As an educated woman, I’d rather have an equal chance of being selected based on qualifications than quota.
Oct 15, 2022·edited Oct 15, 2022Liked by Lawrence M. Krauss
In principle, I agree. In practice, in the period of my experience 1970-2000 there were no quotas. The resumes of women (mechanical engineering) were simply disregarded by habit: the selection committee members were not familiar with their advisors and did not want to waste time. This applied to men, of course, but women in the field were few and had hard time having the most famous advisors. I was elected to the selection committee a couple of times and I had to hand carry the resumes of female candidates from office to office for impartial review. Years later I was praised for my efforts by my male colleagues.
When there is inequality, women are often judged as hired because of having sex with somebody or because of “quotas”.
As the number of men going to higher education shrinks, we already hear “quotas” for (white) men. It has happened in the US (white vs Asian) and in Japan (male vs female) in some instances. I rely on memory but I am sure you can search for the newspaper articles.
I put quotas in quotes because I am not familiar with cases of actual quotas, just encouragement to increase numbers of a certain group.
I can't help but think of Rorschach in Alan Moore's masterpiece novel "Watchmen". His choice of death over participation in the noble lie--a lie that hid a potentially catastrophic truth--is a sentiment not difficult for me to understand on a visceral level. Truth has an ineffably transcendent value of its own.
That said, I also consider truth to be a servant of love. But true love is not entirely warm and cuddly. To truly will the good of the other is not to infantilize them with padded safe spaces; not to deny them the opportunities to encounter obstacles and sources of resistance; not to deny them the chance to meet the adversarial circumstances necessary for growth; not to do as the Buddha's father was said to have done in seeking to hide the tragedy of mortal reality. To hide or artificially sweeten the bitter truths of the world--as the average female temperament seems to be doing in academia and beyond with this quasi-religious Woke Neo-Marxist stuff--is to do the good of the other a disservice. Worse, it is to Oedipalize people in the guise of DIE and, in the process, deny them the development necessary to navigate the tragedies inevitable in life outside the insulated nest.
An outstanding piece, and one that must stimulate discourse in the ivory tower if we are to change from our current course and avoid sleepwalking into a bizarre new Dark Age.
Very interesting article! One of the things I’m wondering about is, if and how the changes in the involvement of men and women, not just in academia, but over the whole range of societal activities, would play a role in further evolution of the sexes in the long run. From the selfish-gene point of view, it shouldn’t. Nevertheless, I wonder if the weight of group selection could increase with the increase in size and/or influence of social groups on the quality of life, at times even the longevity.
The problem is that this finite planet is facing a 3 billion population increase with 2 billion still needing more and better food combined with some self-pollution issues. If the ability to determine truth and reality decreases we will be in even bigger problems. Lysenkoism provided the much more PC belief in Russia at the time, but it didn't work out very well if you count the starvation of millions. This shift in focus away from truth and reality may also have very bad outcomes as the good intentions lead a path to hell.
I do not agree that having more women in academia makes the world less real and less truthful. I am sure you mean something less general. After all, women have been the majority in certain fields and professions. An effort to produce numerical equality may cause a short term kink but it does not persist. At least in academia I have seen corrections via denial of tenure of both white men and DEI hirings when found not to perform according to previously accepted standards.
My response is mixed as the distributions of traits are highly overlapping. All the DEI check-box categories are internally variable on more relevant traits as to make them virtually worthless in saying anything about an individual. However, it appears that the UC system is DEI filtering the applicants for tenure track positions before they are even passed for expert review and that filtering process appears to selecting against White and Asian males. I know deans who were effective given orders requiring check-box categories only.
I have been driven to over-respond by some reported efforts to reduce math requirement (calculus) for STEM because it is a "hard course" and selects against the DEI "underrepresented". However, I consider mathematics as the language of STEM and if you aren't good at math, you shouldn't bother with STEM. You literally can't "see" or "understand" many dynamic and kinetic system behaviors without math.
As I have very poor language skills, I couldn't have been an English major or Economic History. The observed distribution of the DEI check-box sub groups in STEM is determined by individuals being attracted to STEM and/or rejected by other academic areas.
There is no reason to expect the distribution of check-box traits in a particular area is at all related to the general population distribution. Trying to get gender "equity" in sanitary engineering may be a bit difficult, not because of ability but individual interest.
I am really surprised and dismayed, if true, to hear what you report about UC. I do not expect equality in numbers in STEM, but also I do not expect the situation I found myself at the beginning of my career. If you have only 2-5% women in a STEM department and you get one male and one female candidate equally qualified (or marginally different) should you not choose the female candidate? And conversely for something like nursing, although not STEM (?).
I don't know. Perhaps at that point where all is equal, a coin toss. I don't think I even considered sex in all my hiring decision over half a century beyond being slightly pro-women for jobs dealing with living organisms (but that may just be the biases in aquaculture world wide that women do better in larval and algal culture).
I do not have direct personal proof of what UC is doing, but it seems to fit the observations and lots of discussions with academic friends. I did note that UC is using Lectures, etc. non-tenure track positions to handle a lot of very technical areas that must be covered by people who know and understand the subject area. To see 400+ student classes by lectures says something, but that something may be that DEI doesn't apply non-tenure track decisions where competence in the subject is required.
Back in my youth, irrelevant factors of the check-box DEI categories were a bit more significant, which provided a hiring opportunity to obtain higher quality staff within budget. I got the best people working for me and that made me look good, but I was private sector where I could and did override the HR people.
I don’t completely agree. I’d say it depends on the case. For some subjects and questions, just a yes or no option may not suffice for an answer. In such cases, an “it’s complicated” option could be interpreted as “it can’t be answered by a simple yes or no”.
I also don't agree with myself, it's fine to have a third choice in a true or false truth statement answer, I just prefer a binary answer, and its ok to prefer a certain type of discourse.
As you may know, “merit” has been discredited in some cases as not always objective. But aren’t you glad to see (white) men in discomfort over perceived discrimination against them? :) Learning curve? Imagine how women or other DEI groups felt for decades! I am 75 years old, so I only speak of my own earlier experiences. But I understand you very well.
PS. My chances of getting a coveted entry spot for BS in engineering in national Greek examinations (about 100 students for civil engineering at the time, 1965) were enhanced by blinding the names and sex of all the applicants. * Extra applicants were admitted through loopholes (money, connections) but at least those did not displace merit-based applicants. This is difficult to do now for applicants to academic positions.
*This did not prevent some male applicants who failed the same exam and went abroad for a BS degree from accusing me later of having been accepted because of my sex!
I can see how my comment was more provocative than I intended, it was an emotional reaction to something I found uncomfortable, so I apologize if I caused a disturbance. Of course me being a white male makes any apology, or good faith interaction suspect, so I probably am a very malevolent person, and profoundly bigoted, so sorry about all that.
May be I missed it, but it did not see any discussion of the effect of misogynism/harassment/sexism/biases against women in society in general regarding the development of these traits in women in academia and elsewhere. As I got my Ph.D in Engineering in 1973, I was very aware of “truths” that were simply biases or excuses for discrimination. Here is, for example, a truth I was told right away in academia: my TIAA benefits were less than those of male faculty because “women live longer”. *I asked where are the statistics of life expectancy among female mechanical engineering professors for comparison? None, as I was the first woman in my mechanical engineering department at the time! But even assuming that it is a universal truth that similarly situated women live longer than men, when this “truth’ is used for discrimination in benefits, I surely object! So if you ask me, I am all for scientific truth, but I retain a nagging suspicion that it may be used inappropriately or out of context or that it is not based on good research. This attitude reflects my experience.
*This was found discriminatory and corrected a few years later.
good points as always
Achieving objective equality (or fairness) is difficult and maybe an interesting research subject on its own. As your example shows, there are many ways to misuse the very subject of equality for its pursue. I personally see the quotas foreseen for women as something which has a higher potential for harm than use. As an educated woman, I’d rather have an equal chance of being selected based on qualifications than quota.
In principle, I agree. In practice, in the period of my experience 1970-2000 there were no quotas. The resumes of women (mechanical engineering) were simply disregarded by habit: the selection committee members were not familiar with their advisors and did not want to waste time. This applied to men, of course, but women in the field were few and had hard time having the most famous advisors. I was elected to the selection committee a couple of times and I had to hand carry the resumes of female candidates from office to office for impartial review. Years later I was praised for my efforts by my male colleagues.
When there is inequality, women are often judged as hired because of having sex with somebody or because of “quotas”.
As the number of men going to higher education shrinks, we already hear “quotas” for (white) men. It has happened in the US (white vs Asian) and in Japan (male vs female) in some instances. I rely on memory but I am sure you can search for the newspaper articles.
I put quotas in quotes because I am not familiar with cases of actual quotas, just encouragement to increase numbers of a certain group.
I can't help but think of Rorschach in Alan Moore's masterpiece novel "Watchmen". His choice of death over participation in the noble lie--a lie that hid a potentially catastrophic truth--is a sentiment not difficult for me to understand on a visceral level. Truth has an ineffably transcendent value of its own.
That said, I also consider truth to be a servant of love. But true love is not entirely warm and cuddly. To truly will the good of the other is not to infantilize them with padded safe spaces; not to deny them the opportunities to encounter obstacles and sources of resistance; not to deny them the chance to meet the adversarial circumstances necessary for growth; not to do as the Buddha's father was said to have done in seeking to hide the tragedy of mortal reality. To hide or artificially sweeten the bitter truths of the world--as the average female temperament seems to be doing in academia and beyond with this quasi-religious Woke Neo-Marxist stuff--is to do the good of the other a disservice. Worse, it is to Oedipalize people in the guise of DIE and, in the process, deny them the development necessary to navigate the tragedies inevitable in life outside the insulated nest.
An outstanding piece, and one that must stimulate discourse in the ivory tower if we are to change from our current course and avoid sleepwalking into a bizarre new Dark Age.
Thanks for highlighting Lawrence.
Very interesting article! One of the things I’m wondering about is, if and how the changes in the involvement of men and women, not just in academia, but over the whole range of societal activities, would play a role in further evolution of the sexes in the long run. From the selfish-gene point of view, it shouldn’t. Nevertheless, I wonder if the weight of group selection could increase with the increase in size and/or influence of social groups on the quality of life, at times even the longevity.
The problem is that this finite planet is facing a 3 billion population increase with 2 billion still needing more and better food combined with some self-pollution issues. If the ability to determine truth and reality decreases we will be in even bigger problems. Lysenkoism provided the much more PC belief in Russia at the time, but it didn't work out very well if you count the starvation of millions. This shift in focus away from truth and reality may also have very bad outcomes as the good intentions lead a path to hell.
Are you implying that the statistics in the article are purposely distorted to be socially desirable?
This shines an insidious light on an alternate perspective I had not considered. 
No, as you centralize and focus on the DEI and "softer" area women appear to approve of, the focus on the truth and reality will decrease.
I do not agree that having more women in academia makes the world less real and less truthful. I am sure you mean something less general. After all, women have been the majority in certain fields and professions. An effort to produce numerical equality may cause a short term kink but it does not persist. At least in academia I have seen corrections via denial of tenure of both white men and DEI hirings when found not to perform according to previously accepted standards.
My response is mixed as the distributions of traits are highly overlapping. All the DEI check-box categories are internally variable on more relevant traits as to make them virtually worthless in saying anything about an individual. However, it appears that the UC system is DEI filtering the applicants for tenure track positions before they are even passed for expert review and that filtering process appears to selecting against White and Asian males. I know deans who were effective given orders requiring check-box categories only.
I have been driven to over-respond by some reported efforts to reduce math requirement (calculus) for STEM because it is a "hard course" and selects against the DEI "underrepresented". However, I consider mathematics as the language of STEM and if you aren't good at math, you shouldn't bother with STEM. You literally can't "see" or "understand" many dynamic and kinetic system behaviors without math.
As I have very poor language skills, I couldn't have been an English major or Economic History. The observed distribution of the DEI check-box sub groups in STEM is determined by individuals being attracted to STEM and/or rejected by other academic areas.
There is no reason to expect the distribution of check-box traits in a particular area is at all related to the general population distribution. Trying to get gender "equity" in sanitary engineering may be a bit difficult, not because of ability but individual interest.
I am really surprised and dismayed, if true, to hear what you report about UC. I do not expect equality in numbers in STEM, but also I do not expect the situation I found myself at the beginning of my career. If you have only 2-5% women in a STEM department and you get one male and one female candidate equally qualified (or marginally different) should you not choose the female candidate? And conversely for something like nursing, although not STEM (?).
I don't know. Perhaps at that point where all is equal, a coin toss. I don't think I even considered sex in all my hiring decision over half a century beyond being slightly pro-women for jobs dealing with living organisms (but that may just be the biases in aquaculture world wide that women do better in larval and algal culture).
I do not have direct personal proof of what UC is doing, but it seems to fit the observations and lots of discussions with academic friends. I did note that UC is using Lectures, etc. non-tenure track positions to handle a lot of very technical areas that must be covered by people who know and understand the subject area. To see 400+ student classes by lectures says something, but that something may be that DEI doesn't apply non-tenure track decisions where competence in the subject is required.
Back in my youth, irrelevant factors of the check-box DEI categories were a bit more significant, which provided a hiring opportunity to obtain higher quality staff within budget. I got the best people working for me and that made me look good, but I was private sector where I could and did override the HR people.
I can’t say I agree or even disagree. I will say you have made me really think about this. For better or for worse.
Thank you Dallas.
"Its complicated," is a weak & cowardly truth statement. The "its complicated
people" have no respect for truth, why don't they say, "I'm ignorant of the facts and I have a low IQ, what was the question?"
Merit test the whole group, and place them in educational institutions accordingly.
My mood is probably responsible for this comment.
I don’t completely agree. I’d say it depends on the case. For some subjects and questions, just a yes or no option may not suffice for an answer. In such cases, an “it’s complicated” option could be interpreted as “it can’t be answered by a simple yes or no”.
I also don't agree with myself, it's fine to have a third choice in a true or false truth statement answer, I just prefer a binary answer, and its ok to prefer a certain type of discourse.
As you may know, “merit” has been discredited in some cases as not always objective. But aren’t you glad to see (white) men in discomfort over perceived discrimination against them? :) Learning curve? Imagine how women or other DEI groups felt for decades! I am 75 years old, so I only speak of my own earlier experiences. But I understand you very well.
PS. My chances of getting a coveted entry spot for BS in engineering in national Greek examinations (about 100 students for civil engineering at the time, 1965) were enhanced by blinding the names and sex of all the applicants. * Extra applicants were admitted through loopholes (money, connections) but at least those did not displace merit-based applicants. This is difficult to do now for applicants to academic positions.
*This did not prevent some male applicants who failed the same exam and went abroad for a BS degree from accusing me later of having been accepted because of my sex!
I can see how my comment was more provocative than I intended, it was an emotional reaction to something I found uncomfortable, so I apologize if I caused a disturbance. Of course me being a white male makes any apology, or good faith interaction suspect, so I probably am a very malevolent person, and profoundly bigoted, so sorry about all that.
Not at all! In any case I found your post helpful. And, of course, we are all bigoted by various degrees :)
Thanks Lawrence for reposting this here.
Society will dictate change. Thank you for helping us keep up with the demands.
Not everyone is fully aware of these changes. Articles like this are important for informed discussion.