I discovered three things about CP Snow this morning:

1. The P stands for Percy.

2. He was a scientist.

3. Although I have known for as long as I can remember that he spoke of the “two cultures” in Western society, I had always thought he considered this a good thing, or at least just the way it was, and neither good nor bad. Today I found out that he considered it to be definitely a bad thing, and something that should be changed.

So my questions are:
1. How did I get it so wrong?

2. Why, when he is invariably seen as someone to be respected, do so few people speak and act to further his aim of reducing the gulf between the two cultures?

Can you precis the ‘two cultures”?

sibeen said:

Can you precis the ‘two cultures”?

Two Amazing Things About Cultures.

Peak Warming Man said:

sibeen said:

Can you precis the ‘two cultures”?

Two Amazing Things About Cultures.

Maybe an expanded version on that would be nice.

Snow’s position can be summed up by an often-repeated part of the essay:

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

sibeen said:

Peak Warming Man said:

sibeen said:

Can you precis the ‘two cultures”?

Two Amazing Things About Cultures.

Maybe an expanded version on that would be nice.

No pleasing some people :)

WR’s quote sums it up well.

Basically that people with a scientific education are seen as ignorant by those with a non-scientific education.

Witty Rejoinder said:

Snow’s position can be summed up by an often-repeated part of the essay:

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

Ta, Witty :)

a peripheral comment
i thought this phenomenon occurs because one culture is future-focused, and the other past-focused
i have this conflict with a friend of a friend currently
and have also had a much bigger version of the conflict with an enemy

The Rev Dodgson said:

1. How did I get it so wrong?

2. Why, when he is invariably seen as someone to be respected, do so few people speak and act to further his aim of reducing the gulf between the two cultures?

1. Perhaps it is not in the interests of those who introduced you to it, to have you get it right.

2. I did not know that this was someone to be respected (so thanks for introducing me to it), but perhaps it is not in the personal interest of most of those invariates, to speak and act to further his aim.

FWIW, I think the major gulf now is between those who value knowledge and the willfully ignorant.

The Rev Dodgson said:

1. How did I get it so wrong?

I suppose that depends on how well acquainted you were with the subject. If it something you learnt long ago and had not revisited than you just got it arse about. OTOH if this is something you gottenbwrong time and time again it is a tad awry. May be some type of Mandela effect:

Https://theconversation.com/amp/the-mandela-effect-and-how-your-mind-is-playing-tricks-on-you-89544&ved=2ahUKEwiE5M_Vj8nfAhWEUbwKHaY7BKsQFjAJegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw0-eEcEoiGweAkFTZdIVysb&cf=1

dv said:

FWIW, I think the major gulf now is between those who value knowledge and the willfully ignorant.

It seems there’s also a growing gulf between those value open debate and free academic enquiry, those who actively oppose it, and editors who’ve been convinced “sorry mate, that’s more than my job’s worth.”

Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

https://quillette.com/2018/09/07/academic-activists-send-a-published-paper-down-the-memory-hole/

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

FWIW, I think the major gulf now is between those who value knowledge and the willfully ignorant.

It seems there’s also a growing gulf between those value open debate and free academic enquiry, those who actively oppose it, and editors who’ve been convinced “sorry mate, that’s more than my job’s worth.”

Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

https://quillette.com/2018/09/07/academic-activists-send-a-published-paper-down-the-memory-hole/

Unsurprisingly, it would appear Hill’s description of events regarding the rejection of his paper is somewhat inaccurate.

Statement in response to Ted Hill’s unfounded allegations.

9/11/18
This statement is meant to set the record straight on the unfounded accusations of Ted Hill regarding his submission to the New York Journal of Mathematics (NYJM), where I was one of 24 editors serving under an editor-in-chief. Hill’s paper raised several red flags to me and other editors, giving concern not just about the quality of the paper, but also the question of whether it underwent the usual rigorous review process. Hill’s paper also looked totally inappropriate for this theoretical math journal: in addition to the paucity of math in the paper, its subject classification (given by the authors themselves) appeared in no other paper in NYJM’s 24 year history, and did not fall into any of the areas of expertise of the editors of NYJM, as listed on the NYJM website.

At the request of several editors, the editor-in-chief pulled the paper temporarily on 11/9/17 so that the entire editorial board could discuss these concerns. A crucial component of such a discussion are the reports by experts judging the novelty and quality of the mathematics in Hill’s paper. The editor who handled the paper was asked to share these reports with the entire board.

My doubts about the paper – and the process – grew when repeated requests for the reports went unanswered. Nearly 3 months passed until the editor handling the paper finally produced two reports on 2/7/18. The reports themselves were not from experts on the topic of the paper. They did not address our concerns about the substantive merit of the paper.

After these reports were shared, the entire board discussed what do. For many of us, there was no compelling evidence that Hill’s paper was appropriate for NYJM. Further, the evidence that the paper had undergone rigorous scrutiny before being accepted was scant. In light of this, the board voted (by a 2-to-1 ratio) to rescind the paper. I believe that the editor-in-chief should have added a statement about why this was done, but he did not. Amie Wilkinson played no role in any deliberation of Hill’s or any paper at NYJM.

I appreciate those who have taken the time to examine the record, including the University of Chicago.

Benson Farb
Professor of Mathematics
University of Chicago

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

FWIW, I think the major gulf now is between those who value knowledge and the willfully ignorant.

It seems there’s also a growing gulf between those value open debate and free academic enquiry, those who actively oppose it, and editors who’ve been convinced “sorry mate, that’s more than my job’s worth.”

Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

https://quillette.com/2018/09/07/academic-activists-send-a-published-paper-down-the-memory-hole/

Unsurprisingly, it would appear Hill’s description of events regarding the rejection of his paper is somewhat inaccurate.

Statement in response to Ted Hill’s unfounded allegations.

9/11/18
This statement is meant to set the record straight on the unfounded accusations of Ted Hill regarding his submission to the New York Journal of Mathematics (NYJM), where I was one of 24 editors serving under an editor-in-chief. Hill’s paper raised several red flags to me and other editors, giving concern not just about the quality of the paper, but also the question of whether it underwent the usual rigorous review process. Hill’s paper also looked totally inappropriate for this theoretical math journal: in addition to the paucity of math in the paper, its subject classification (given by the authors themselves) appeared in no other paper in NYJM’s 24 year history, and did not fall into any of the areas of expertise of the editors of NYJM, as listed on the NYJM website.

At the request of several editors, the editor-in-chief pulled the paper temporarily on 11/9/17 so that the entire editorial board could discuss these concerns. A crucial component of such a discussion are the reports by experts judging the novelty and quality of the mathematics in Hill’s paper. The editor who handled the paper was asked to share these reports with the entire board.

My doubts about the paper – and the process – grew when repeated requests for the reports went unanswered. Nearly 3 months passed until the editor handling the paper finally produced two reports on 2/7/18. The reports themselves were not from experts on the topic of the paper. They did not address our concerns about the substantive merit of the paper.

After these reports were shared, the entire board discussed what do. For many of us, there was no compelling evidence that Hill’s paper was appropriate for NYJM. Further, the evidence that the paper had undergone rigorous scrutiny before being accepted was scant. In light of this, the board voted (by a 2-to-1 ratio) to rescind the paper. I believe that the editor-in-chief should have added a statement about why this was done, but he did not. Amie Wilkinson played no role in any deliberation of Hill’s or any paper at NYJM.

I appreciate those who have taken the time to examine the record, including the University of Chicago.

Benson Farb
Professor of Mathematics
University of Chicago

Who to believe? There’s apparently no way for casual observers to tell.

But it does appear that his paper was enthusiastically received by various journals who then changed their minds.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

FWIW, I think the major gulf now is between those who value knowledge and the willfully ignorant.

It seems there’s also a growing gulf between those value open debate and free academic enquiry, those who actively oppose it, and editors who’ve been convinced “sorry mate, that’s more than my job’s worth.”

Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

https://quillette.com/2018/09/07/academic-activists-send-a-published-paper-down-the-memory-hole/

Unsurprisingly, it would appear Hill’s description of events regarding the rejection of his paper is somewhat inaccurate.

Statement in response to Ted Hill’s unfounded allegations.

9/11/18
This statement is meant to set the record straight on the unfounded accusations of Ted Hill regarding his submission to the New York Journal of Mathematics (NYJM), where I was one of 24 editors serving under an editor-in-chief. Hill’s paper raised several red flags to me and other editors, giving concern not just about the quality of the paper, but also the question of whether it underwent the usual rigorous review process. Hill’s paper also looked totally inappropriate for this theoretical math journal: in addition to the paucity of math in the paper, its subject classification (given by the authors themselves) appeared in no other paper in NYJM’s 24 year history, and did not fall into any of the areas of expertise of the editors of NYJM, as listed on the NYJM website.

At the request of several editors, the editor-in-chief pulled the paper temporarily on 11/9/17 so that the entire editorial board could discuss these concerns. A crucial component of such a discussion are the reports by experts judging the novelty and quality of the mathematics in Hill’s paper. The editor who handled the paper was asked to share these reports with the entire board.

My doubts about the paper – and the process – grew when repeated requests for the reports went unanswered. Nearly 3 months passed until the editor handling the paper finally produced two reports on 2/7/18. The reports themselves were not from experts on the topic of the paper. They did not address our concerns about the substantive merit of the paper.

After these reports were shared, the entire board discussed what do. For many of us, there was no compelling evidence that Hill’s paper was appropriate for NYJM. Further, the evidence that the paper had undergone rigorous scrutiny before being accepted was scant. In light of this, the board voted (by a 2-to-1 ratio) to rescind the paper. I believe that the editor-in-chief should have added a statement about why this was done, but he did not. Amie Wilkinson played no role in any deliberation of Hill’s or any paper at NYJM.

I appreciate those who have taken the time to examine the record, including the University of Chicago.

Benson Farb
Professor of Mathematics
University of Chicago

Also:

https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2018/09/it-turns-out-that-mathematician-ted-hill-didnt-just-write-a-bad-paper-but-hes-full-of-shit-about-wha.html

“On another point, biologist Gregory Mayer (Wisconsin/Parkside) writes with a different observation:”

An oddity unremarked in your or other comments on the paper by Ted Hill is that the paper is a paper on evolutionary biology, not mathematics, and so its submission to two math journals, whose editors and reviewers would not generally be expected to be experts on that subject, is curious. Evolutionary biology journals (e.g. Evolution, American Naturalist) routinely publish theoretical work on subjects such as the paper deals with. It is well known, both empirically and theoretically, that natural (including sexual) selection can act to alter both means and variances of characteristics of organisms.

I’ve just taken a look at it quickly, but it begins with a historical confusion. The quote from Darwin concerns the fact that, in most sexually dimorphic species, males are the more highly ornamented sex (think peacocks), and is not about males having a higher degree of variability. Darwin did hold that males generally are more variable than females, citing features such as the variability of various body measurements. But these two phenomena are separate empirical findings, relying on different sets of observations, even if the causal factors leading to them may be related….

As to why the paper was submitted to the particular journals it was sent, I could only speculate that being a mathematician, Hill sent it to journals he was familiar with.

Bubblecar said:

But it does appear that his paper was enthusiastically received by various journals who then changed their minds.

The anomaly here seems to be that these two mathematics journals at any time accepted this paper, which is about evolutionary biology. It would appear the anomaly was caught in time.

There have been plenty of papers dealing with the topic discussed by Hill, published in biology journals.

quillette Hmmmm

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette

thought i had read about them before.

“By way of further explanation, Senechal even compared our paper to the Confederate statues that had recently been removed from the courthouse lawn in Lexington, Kentucky”

Well, quite. Evolutionary biology papers don’t belong in maths journals, just as Confederate statues don’t belong in the 21st century.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

But it does appear that his paper was enthusiastically received by various journals who then changed their minds.

The anomaly here seems to be that these two mathematics journals at any time accepted this paper, which is about evolutionary biology. It would appear the anomaly was caught in time.

There have been plenty of papers dealing with the topic discussed by Hill, published in biology journals.

I’ve no doubt there are other legitimate sides to this story. Quillette specialises in essays bemoaning how modern (usually US) academia is now overrun by the PC leftist SJWs etc. But on this and other issues Quillette don’t seem to give much space to alternative perspectives, despite “giving space to alternative perspectives” being their ostensible mission.

Nonetheless it’s hard not to get the impression that there genuinely is a lot of insular leftist territorialism going on in many of those universities, especially in the social sciences etc.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

But it does appear that his paper was enthusiastically received by various journals who then changed their minds.

The anomaly here seems to be that these two mathematics journals at any time accepted this paper, which is about evolutionary biology. It would appear the anomaly was caught in time.

There have been plenty of papers dealing with the topic discussed by Hill, published in biology journals.

But as Hill points out the paper was published in the NYJM and then withdrawn after protests. That seems very strange and as Hill further points out screws him right over as he cannot submit it elsewhere.

JudgeMental said:

quillette Hmmmm

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette

thought i had read about them before.

I’d say that’s too harshly dismissive. They do publish a diversity of stuff including moderate left pieces as well.

They’re certainly popular with the righties but there are also a few more rational voices in the comments.

Bubblecar said:

Nonetheless it’s hard not to get the impression that there genuinely is a lot of insular leftist territorialism going on in many of those universities, especially in the social sciences etc.

Very generally I agree but this isn’t a good example. These were maths journals. They aren’t run by leftists. And not publishing biology papers in maths journals is a no brainer. Seems that the only reason they were considered in the first place was that there was a butthurt MAGA incel on the editorial team.

sibeen said:

But as Hill points out the paper was published in the NYJM and then withdrawn after protests.

Yes, but Hill’s lying about that. The NYJM gave a full report on the basis for the board’s decision.

https://gowers.wordpress.com/2018/09/09/has-an-uncomfortable-truth-been-suppressed/

I was therefore prompted to look at the paper itself, which is on the arXiv, and there I was met by a surprise. I was worried that I would find it convincing, but in fact I found it so unconvincing that I think it was a bad mistake by Mathematical Intelligencer and the New York Journal of Mathematics to accept it, but for reasons of mathematical quality rather than for any controversy that might arise from it. To put that point more directly, if somebody came up with a plausible model (I don’t insist that it should be clearly correct) and showed that subject to certain assumptions about males and females one would expect greater variability to evolve amongst males, then that might well be interesting enough to publish, and certainly shouldn’t be suppressed just because it might be uncomfortable, though for all sorts of reasons that I’ll discuss briefly later, I don’t think it would be as uncomfortable as all that. But this paper appears to me to fall well short of that standard

The scandal here is that it was accepted, not that it was subsequently withdrawn.

dv said:

sibeen said:

But as Hill points out the paper was published in the NYJM and then withdrawn after protests.

Yes, but Hill’s lying about that. The NYJM gave a full report on the basis for the board’s decision.

I’m with Hill on this, if he’s been truthful. I’ve never heard of a paper being dissapeared after a day or two.

sibeen said:

dv said:

sibeen said:

But as Hill points out the paper was published in the NYJM and then withdrawn after protests.

Yes, but Hill’s lying about that. The NYJM gave a full report on the basis for the board’s decision.

I’m with Hill on this, if he’s been truthful. I’ve never heard of a paper being dissapeared after a day or two.

Well, I have. It happens. It’s an embarrassing admission of failure of the editorial process but it occurs.
https://retractionwatch.com/2010/12/07/academic-purgatory-papers-withdrawn-before-theyre-officially-published/

Interesting interview with Camille Paglia by Quillette editor Clair Lehmann. I think this piece probably better reflects where Quillette is coming from (on some issues) than that hatchet job in RationalWiki.

Paglia is a bit of a ratbag (climate denialist etc) but she’s more a leftish libertarian Romantic than a commentator of the Right.

https://quillette.com/2018/11/10/camille-paglia-its-time-for-a-new-map-of-the-gender-world/

Bubblecar said:

Interesting interview with Camille Paglia by Quillette editor Clair Lehmann. I think this piece probably better reflects where Quillette is coming from (on some issues) than that hatchet job in RationalWiki.

Paglia is a bit of a ratbag (climate denialist etc) but she’s more a leftish libertarian Romantic than a commentator of the Right.

https://quillette.com/2018/11/10/camille-paglia-its-time-for-a-new-map-of-the-gender-world/

yeah, quite a few pages agree with the rational wiki take. right leaning or “libertarian” as they like to call it.

dv said:

sibeen said:

dv said:

Yes, but Hill’s lying about that. The NYJM gave a full report on the basis for the board’s decision.

I’m with Hill on this, if he’s been truthful. I’ve never heard of a paper being dissapeared after a day or two.

Well, I have. It happens. It’s an embarrassing admission of failure of the editorial process but it occurs.
https://retractionwatch.com/2010/12/07/academic-purgatory-papers-withdrawn-before-theyre-officially-published/

If a paper appears online but then is withdrawn — a kinder, gentler version of retracted — before it is “officially” published, did anyone hear it fall?

But that’s not the case in this -err – case :)

The New York Journal of Mathematics is a purely on-line journal, there is no print addition.

sibeen said:

dv said:

sibeen said:

I’m with Hill on this, if he’s been truthful. I’ve never heard of a paper being dissapeared after a day or two.

Well, I have. It happens. It’s an embarrassing admission of failure of the editorial process but it occurs.
https://retractionwatch.com/2010/12/07/academic-purgatory-papers-withdrawn-before-theyre-officially-published/

If a paper appears online but then is withdrawn — a kinder, gentler version of retracted — before it is “officially” published, did anyone hear it fall?

But that’s not the case in this -err – case :)

The New York Journal of Mathematics is a purely on-line journal, there is no print addition.

Well I’m sure there’s a case to argue that they should have let the original publication stand and then either issued a formal retraction or included a note: ie that once it is published it is indeed published.
But this doesn’t much change the case that the paper was pulled for quality and relevance, rather than due to any “protests” or controversy.

JudgeMental said:

Bubblecar said:

Interesting interview with Camille Paglia by Quillette editor Clair Lehmann. I think this piece probably better reflects where Quillette is coming from (on some issues) than that hatchet job in RationalWiki.

Paglia is a bit of a ratbag (climate denialist etc) but she’s more a leftish libertarian Romantic than a commentator of the Right.

https://quillette.com/2018/11/10/camille-paglia-its-time-for-a-new-map-of-the-gender-world/

yeah, quite a few pages agree with the rational wiki take. right leaning or “libertarian” as they like to call it.

I would say it’s right-leaning but often publishes interestingly contentious stuff.

Quillette certainly publish some interesting pieces. Their defence of PewDiePie was interesting and mostly well informed but, again, it didn’t give any space at all to opposing views.

https://quillette.com/2018/12/20/pewdiepies-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-internet/

dv said:

sibeen said:

But as Hill points out the paper was published in the NYJM and then withdrawn after protests.

Yes, but Hill’s lying about that. The NYJM gave a full report on the basis for the board’s decision.

Even if it were true, people make mistakes, get over it.

It’s only one paper, he can always re-write it with a different title.

He seems to have a pretty big sense of entitlement.

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

sibeen said:

But as Hill points out the paper was published in the NYJM and then withdrawn after protests.

Yes, but Hill’s lying about that. The NYJM gave a full report on the basis for the board’s decision.

Even if it were true, people make mistakes, get over it.

It’s only one paper, he can always re-write it with a different title.

He seems to have a pretty big sense of entitlement.

Or … wait for it … he could submit this paper on evolutionary biology to a Biology Journal.

dv said:

Seems that the only reason they were considered in the first place was that there was a butthurt MAGA incel on the editorial team.

Butthurt and incel… there is no pleasing some people.

Witty Rejoinder said:

dv said:

Seems that the only reason they were considered in the first place was that there was a butthurt MAGA incel on the editorial team.

Butthurt and incel… there is no pleasing some people.

Is that quote from CP Snow “Science and Society”. Michael Flanders commented: “I haven’t read it, I’m waiting for the film to come out”

> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

Eloi and Morlocks.

Witty Rejoinder said:

Butthurt and incel… there is no pleasing some people.

That’s a great line :-)

https://www.livescience.com/64353-top-retracted-papers-2018.html

Witty Rejoinder said:

Snow’s position can be summed up by an often-repeated part of the essay:

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

Isn’t this self-evidently a bad thing?

Kothos said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Snow’s position can be summed up by an often-repeated part of the essay:

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

Isn’t this self-evidently a bad thing?

In a democracy, it is good if everyone has some basic understanding so that they can vote meaningfully. Economics, physics, psychology etc are all fields that provide useful data for governance, and if people really don’t know about some of these things they are likely to be swayed by ill-informed ideas.

Indeed, just so.

I mean not everyone needs to be Isaac Newton but everyone should have enough basic science nous that they can detect obv BS.

Isn’t this why, until Year 10, pretty much all subjects are compulsory?