At the same time, can't you apply that argument in the other direction? "If your only reason for not giving people nuclear weapons is that some bad apples will misuse them, that's no argument at all!" Right? So obviously there's a line somewhere in the middle where you give people every freedom except for the ones that cause a whole lot of people to harm each other. I mean, government IS supposed to keep people from harming each other. Kind of its raison d'etre.

This must be why we believe aliens want to anally probe us: we're projecting.

Oh, but P.S. the posted article doesn't provide any evidence for or against my position. I'm not asserting that it does.

Dammit, I just ran out of mod points. Thank you for providing the answer -- the objective answer -- to this problem (not that there aren't tons of other factors). Protip: women new to tech culture DON'T have a problem with nerds because they're weird; the problem IS that aforementioned nerds are often misogynistic, condescending, constantly making "hilarious" and "ironic" sexist jokes (actually kind of hurtful! please stop doing this!) and leering/ making lewd remarks like it's their job to do so. Often even the teacher or group leader ignores contributions from women. Ask any woman in a tech field -- ANY woman -- if they've had this experience or something like it. We have. WE ALL HAVE, GODDAMMIT.

The word "minority" nowadays usually just means a group that isn't a "majority", or is somehow disenfranchised by society. It's a distinct definiton from the mathetical one, which I realize is annoying as heck. (But I'm used to it; people be stealing us mathematicians' terms all the time.)

The Just World fallacy is, sadly, slashdot's favorite thing. I'm hard pressed to find a single post -- regardless of topic -- where the comments are not full of how poor people are lazy and stupid, minorities are entitled, and if THEY were in those situations, they'd be fine, because all obstacles can be overcome with enough "character".

Considering slashdotters tend to identify as liberal, this is some messed up delusional-rich-Republican thinking.

The article agrees with me. The other commenters clearly do not.

My generation is full of people who were praised for their innate intelligence -- something a child understands is beyond her control -- and subsequently developed the worldview that natural gifts are what matters, that failure is the worst thing, and that if you're not good at something naturally, you won't get good, so, no point trying (these aren't conscious beliefs; more like beliefs we find ourselves slipping into). Research shows that what children need is not high self-esteem, but "self efficacy", which is your faith in yourself to rescue situations, overcome even unexpected obstacles, and develop skill at things via practice and force of will. All telling a kid he's smart will do is make him very, very afraid of anything that might disprove his intelligence. And the fear that, if the intelligence was gone, he would be worth less as a person.

To develop this in others, praise them for their effort and the things they achieved (especially stuff that was harder for them, because the harder it was, the more they've accomplished, really). To develop it in yourself, try focusing on your efforts and strategies, and learn to identify in any situation what is under your control and how those things might be used to achieve your goals, even if it's going to be depressingly hard -- even if it's going to be EMBARRASSINGLY hard. We have to stop being ashamed of needing extra effort, or extra help, and start being proud that we MADE the extra effort, and that we FOUND the extra help. Those things are much, much more useful qualities than innate intelligence... which, by the way, INCREASES when you learn something that is difficult for you to grasp -- like literally, more nerve connections are forged so that later cell firing is infinitesimally faster, each time.

And this is the heart of the matter -- what the hell is intelligence? There are hundreds of qualities we associate with it, and one intelligent person may be completely unable to do something another intelligent person can. Maybe we need to face that fact that "intelligence", like "cancer", does not exist -- it's simply a shorthand for a variety of skills and talents, which for the most part we all have some of but none of us have all of. Stop thinking of the person who doesn't understand math but dances incredibly well as unintelligent. And stop thinking of unintelligent people as inferior. I bet you know some unintelligent people who are among the best people you know. I certainly do.

It's not just your intuition, actually. There is a lot of research coming out that praising children for things beyond their control -- intelligence particularly -- will just make them feel helpless and afraid to disappoint, and will make them less likely to try new things and explore because of this paralyzing fear. (For the curious, the new research says, praise your children mostly for effort, and maybe also for particular accomplishments. Knowing you're effective even without natural advantages is a much, much more effective mindset than believing you're naturally good at everything -- because sooner or later, you'll find out that you aren't).

Agrred -- they're necessary but not sufficient to be recognized as a person of renown, no matter how much you do by yourself in the garage. Someone pointed out in another comment that there are fewer women and minorities who have contributed in fields like science than whites and men, and I think your comment might be EXTREMELY relevant to that observation.

I sort of buy that STEM fields are less modular than art (although even as a math major, the various specialties and areas to pursue once you're an upperclassman felt more sandboxy than train tracky). But what I really have to agree with you on is the fear and stigma surrounding math. I've taught a lot of the subject, and nearly every students comes in saying "I just don't get math" "I'm not a numbers person" "I don't see what it has to do with the real world" (a valid objection, but usually an expression of learning anxiety) or "fractions are too complicated, I never got them". Even with our miserable school system, I think we'd be further ahead in research and tech than we are without this widespread fear. But don't let's just congratulate ourselves, nerds -- there are things in your own life you're not learning because they're intimidating, too. For me they're mostly physical -- riding a bike, driving a car, getting handy with tools -- because that's the kind of learning I find really difficult, and so it's easier to say "someone else knows how, so they can do it". My perfect example is my parents. My dad used to make fun of my mom for being too scared to learn to operate our remotes (receiver, tv, DVD player and cable box -- my dad's a gadget person). Until one day, I found out that he never learned to work our washing machine, which is like an order of magnitude easier, so I told my mom to respond with that every times he makes fun of her for the remote thing. The idea of something being intimidating to learn is enough to dissuade my dad (a very smart, accomplished guy) from even TRYING to learn to wash his clothes, because if he had tried, he'd have done it, because it's easy as crap. Even with less intimidating stuff I still remind myself of the learning-expectation curve: when we first begin something, we think it will be much easier than it is; once we really get into it, we think it will be much harder and take forever and ugh, and then a little bit later we see that it's not that bad, and revise our estimate to somewhere in between those extremes, which is more accurate anyway. So go forth and learn something scary! I try to.

Ah, thank you. It's shocking how unable to take the next logical step this argument is. Yes, there weren't famous women scientists during those times when women were allowed zero access to the realms of science, philosophy, or invention -- wonder why that might be??? Ugh.

"Actually I haven't seen ANY evidence of negative results from genetically modified organisms that has withstood scientific scrutiny."

To be fair, that's because there's been very little research yet, at all.

How are you supposed to know ahead of time whether your invention is for the sake of change, or better? Presumably everybody THINKS their innovation will be an improvement. Just seems like this is the kind of argument used to shut down all of that.

Social Darwinism isn't just for Republicans anymore. I see Social Darwinist sentiments expressed with alarming frequency on slashdot.