Comment Slashdot and its community should be ashamed (Score 2) 523
What is sad is how this community has reacted to the paper in question. That reaction boils down to a sad chain of thinking and actions that is quite harmful
1) Confronted with something out of one's realm of expertise. Panic
2) Read the opinion of the person who provided the unknown. Sigh with relief that
a) Don't have to think very hard any more and
b) That person's ideas fit with the sexism/xenophobia/fear that's deeply harboured but expressed only as anger in online RPGs, IRC chat, or being right on the internet
3) Do a smattering of research to find information that aligns with view either from the source article or other person's comments about it
4) Absolutely do not take any stance that makes it sound like one's voice dissents from the masses yet still pretend independent thought.
5) You're free now! Make sexist comments! Escalate! Defund the NSF! Troll feminists! Troll anyone who disagrees with your thoughts and ideas
6) Avoid any sensible discussion about the topic at all costs. Become entrenched and righteous.
I actually come from a geography program (physical geography) and also used to laugh at articles like this for the simple reason that they used language that I didn't understand and couldn't wrap my physical science brain around. Someone in my family was a women's studies major and the jargon used in her papers and her readings would blow my mind and make me cringe at every sentence. It was grating because it was foreign to me and the unfortunate reptilian reaction for many people, myself included, when confronted with languages, concepts and ideas I don't understand is to laugh them off, to make fun and try to discredit. Because if I can discredit it then I'm the smart one again and that's much safer being humble or wrong.
I'm also a glaciologist and a major reason that I began to study glaciology was because I read all kinds of scientific and adventure lit. accounts of polar crossings, mountaineering winters spent on ships locked in ice etc. etc. All written by men and all with the outlook of conquering the natural environment. Like many boys, this appealed to me. I wanted to suffer in frigid temperatures and discover things and cross vast empty landscapes. As I advanced through the ranks as a glaciologist I had the pleasure of working with a lot of female grad students and undergrads and the neutral approach to understanding a natural system was the discourse du jour. Plain scientific objectivity (from my male point of view). I'm actually thankful that slashdot inadvertently lead me to this paper because it made me aware of the idea that the viewpoint I had taken about my science may have been coloured somewhat by who I am and the dominant percentage of male colleagues. Sure, the paper holds true to human geography's tendency to over-jargon-ize things. But when parsing human interaction and sociology and history and meta-science I can see how nuanced language becomes important. And, like any science, jargon is specific to a given field. Slashdot's audience will, almost by definition, occupy whatever polar opposite of technical jargon exists relative to the jargon in a human geography paper and that jargon is no more likely to be understood by a lay population than a human geographer's. And if you think your "ideas" mocking or belittling a paper like this one have any kind of intellectual merit you are wrong. One of the principal authors in multiple citations in the paper is a distinguished anthropology professor at the University of British Columbia who was awarded the Order of Canada several years ago. Furthermore, her husband is one of the most brilliant, well published, and distinguished glaciologists the field has known. These are two brilliant, high minded people that have managed to bridge the gaps that this crowd is stumbling and making fools of themselves over.
1) Confronted with something out of one's realm of expertise. Panic
2) Read the opinion of the person who provided the unknown. Sigh with relief that
a) Don't have to think very hard any more and
b) That person's ideas fit with the sexism/xenophobia/fear that's deeply harboured but expressed only as anger in online RPGs, IRC chat, or being right on the internet
3) Do a smattering of research to find information that aligns with view either from the source article or other person's comments about it
4) Absolutely do not take any stance that makes it sound like one's voice dissents from the masses yet still pretend independent thought.
5) You're free now! Make sexist comments! Escalate! Defund the NSF! Troll feminists! Troll anyone who disagrees with your thoughts and ideas
6) Avoid any sensible discussion about the topic at all costs. Become entrenched and righteous.
I actually come from a geography program (physical geography) and also used to laugh at articles like this for the simple reason that they used language that I didn't understand and couldn't wrap my physical science brain around. Someone in my family was a women's studies major and the jargon used in her papers and her readings would blow my mind and make me cringe at every sentence. It was grating because it was foreign to me and the unfortunate reptilian reaction for many people, myself included, when confronted with languages, concepts and ideas I don't understand is to laugh them off, to make fun and try to discredit. Because if I can discredit it then I'm the smart one again and that's much safer being humble or wrong.
I'm also a glaciologist and a major reason that I began to study glaciology was because I read all kinds of scientific and adventure lit. accounts of polar crossings, mountaineering winters spent on ships locked in ice etc. etc. All written by men and all with the outlook of conquering the natural environment. Like many boys, this appealed to me. I wanted to suffer in frigid temperatures and discover things and cross vast empty landscapes. As I advanced through the ranks as a glaciologist I had the pleasure of working with a lot of female grad students and undergrads and the neutral approach to understanding a natural system was the discourse du jour. Plain scientific objectivity (from my male point of view). I'm actually thankful that slashdot inadvertently lead me to this paper because it made me aware of the idea that the viewpoint I had taken about my science may have been coloured somewhat by who I am and the dominant percentage of male colleagues. Sure, the paper holds true to human geography's tendency to over-jargon-ize things. But when parsing human interaction and sociology and history and meta-science I can see how nuanced language becomes important. And, like any science, jargon is specific to a given field. Slashdot's audience will, almost by definition, occupy whatever polar opposite of technical jargon exists relative to the jargon in a human geography paper and that jargon is no more likely to be understood by a lay population than a human geographer's. And if you think your "ideas" mocking or belittling a paper like this one have any kind of intellectual merit you are wrong. One of the principal authors in multiple citations in the paper is a distinguished anthropology professor at the University of British Columbia who was awarded the Order of Canada several years ago. Furthermore, her husband is one of the most brilliant, well published, and distinguished glaciologists the field has known. These are two brilliant, high minded people that have managed to bridge the gaps that this crowd is stumbling and making fools of themselves over.
