Feminine Iceburgs???

[pbehn]

I think someone might be yanking someone else's chain. This to me sounds like an attempt at humour at the expense of people who take feminism and climate change, as separate debating points, far too seriously.

That's what it may sound like but there is no way to be sure. Someone I know at Glasgow university says that they are asked after every lecture "if LBGT and BAME issues were sensitively addressed".

 

[nuuumannn]

Hm, given the general tone of the quoted passages, it is hard to believe that this was written with serious intent, to be honest.

 

[The Basket]

Oh it was serious. If you understand the way things are then even if it was a joke it is merely a guide of the way things are.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Message to everyone:

This thread is obviously on the verge of going into serious politics territory.

Don't be the guy who gets the thread closed.

 

[bbear]

"Glaciers, Gender, and Science—A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental climate change."

This recently published, utterly incomprehensible paper was co-authored by a team of historians at the University of Oregon, and funded via a grant from the National Science Foundation. I hope all you American taxpayers feel like they got their money's worth with this project. From the abstract:

Glaciers are key icons of climate change and global environmental change. However, the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers – particularly related to epistemological questions about the production of glaciological knowledge – remain understudied. This paper thus proposes a feminist glaciology framework with four key components: 1) knowledge producers; (2) gendered science and knowledge; (3) systems of scientific domination; and (4) alternative representations of glaciers. Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.

No it's not April 1st and unfortunately not a joke. Yea he actually wrote: "just and equitable human-ice interactions." In fact the University of Oregon, put out a glowing press release touting its existence.

"What I'm trying to do in my research is provide more of a human story about how shrinking glaciers, warming temperatures, changing precipitation, how that plays out for different people," said lead author Mark Carey, an associate dean of Oregon's history department, in a interview accompanying the press release.

Maybe it's just me but just try to follow along with this paragraph:

Feminist and postcolonial theories enrich and complement each other by showing how gender and colonialism are co-constituted, as well as how both women and indigenous peoples have been marginalized historically (Schnabel, 2014). Feminist glaciology builds from feminist postcolonial science studies, analyzing not only gender dynamics and situated knowledges, but also alternative knowledges and folk glaciologies that are generally marginalized through colonialism, imperialism, inequality, unequal power relations, patriarchy, and the domination of Western science (Harding, 2009).

Remember, this is a paper about how to feminize a giant hunk of ice.

I'm very pro Science and understand that everything studied does not necessarily have an immediate apparent practical value but seriously there should be some limits applied to publicly funded science. This is a prime example where working class people are being forced to fund research on the postcolonial gender theory of melting ice caps.

One last proviso - PLEASE don't turn this into a political Liberal vs. Conservative debate. This is for F U N N Y !!!

For funny. Well OK. Laugh for sure. But like someone already said there is sense to what the guy says. There is or was a macho bias in glaciology and a tendency to overlook the understanding that the indigenous people have of Glaciers. They would hear and feel the vibrations that lab. Glaciologists had to plant detectors for. And had ways to predict sudden thaws and consequent floods. This is now super important because of global warming The man Carey is a genuine mind and I'm glad he got funding.

 

[bbear]

here's the man himself. To me he seems on the level and a smart guy.
Q&A: Author of 'feminist glaciology' study reflects on sudden appearance in culture wars

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Hm, given the general tone of the quoted passages, it is hard to believe that this was written with serious intent, to be honest.

Its deadly serious - these people are absolutely nuts.

Some academics who are NOT yet actually clinically insane have shown this stuff up for the drivvel it is by writing
fake insane papers on similar lines and then getting the published in major social-studies journals... then
pointing out to the editors that the papers (often peer reviewed !) - was fake nonsense.

Google "Fake Dog park paper" - some great YouTube interviews with the people who wrote it to show these
journals up as the morons they are. The dog-park paper is absolutely hillarious, was accepted for publication too !!!

E.g.

Another set of fake papers takes aim at social science's nether regions

 

[bbear]

Its deadly serious - these people are absolutely nuts.

Some academics who are NOT yet actually clinically insane have shown this stuff up for the drivvel it is by writing
fake insane papers on similar lines and then getting the published in major social-studies journals... then
pointing out to the editors that the papers (often peer reviewed !) - was fake nonsense.

Google "Fake Dog park paper" - some great YouTube interviews with the people who wrote it to show these
journals up as the morons they are. The dog-park paper is absolutely hillarious, was accepted for publication too !!!

E.g.

Another set of fake papers takes aim at social science's nether regions

Well. I don't want a row or anything but the previous "hoax" papers were pretty well covered at the time. Faux scholarly article sets off criticism of gender studies and open-access publishing
So I'm inclined towards skepticism.

 

[bbear]

Its deadly serious - these people are absolutely nuts.

Some academics who are NOT yet actually clinically insane have shown this stuff up for the drivvel it is by writing
fake insane papers on similar lines and then getting the published in major social-studies journals... then
pointing out to the editors that the papers (often peer reviewed !) - was fake nonsense.

Google "Fake Dog park paper" - some great YouTube interviews with the people who wrote it to show these
journals up as the morons they are. The dog-park paper is absolutely hillarious, was accepted for publication too !!!

E.g.

Another set of fake papers takes aim at social science's nether regions

Here's link to the brief Economist article which seems to bypass the pay-wall because it is in a foreign language but certainly on my machine auto translates.

'Nuff said?
https://www.tianfateng.cn/19236.html

 

[mikewint]

 

[bbear]

MIke, thanks for that timely reminder of your ambition or humor and deprecation of "culture wars". Fr ths thread

Naturally nothing I have said should detract from the definitive work on the subject "Bacon in Feminist discourse" by M.I.KE. Winters BSO,, BSEd (LIt.), BSE also Purveyot of Pork Products by appointment (or just drop in, we're easy) Currently Professor of BS attached to BACON

ok?)

 

[jetcal1]

I for one am happy that people in university settings are putting in the time and effort to publish these papers and working to secure their place in academia.//s

 

[nuuumannn]

Oh it was serious. If you understand the way things are then even if it was a joke it is merely a guide of the way things are.

Hm, sitting in my place in a very distant New Zealand and looking out across what is happening in life, it's not the way things are. It is someone's perceived idea, it's not everyone's reality. Yup, it is probably easy for me to look at it this way, but what's wrong in that? I'm taking it as a joke, I mean, why take it seriously?

 

[at6]

The whole theory does seem to explain quite well the marriage concept.

 

[The Basket]

Because silly and dangerous ideas appeal to silly and dangerous people.

 

[Zipper730]

Its deadly serious - these people are absolutely nuts.

Some academics who are NOT yet actually clinically insane have shown this stuff up for the drivvel it is by writing fake insane papers on similar lines and then getting the published in major social-studies journals... then pointing out to the editors that the papers (often peer reviewed !) - was fake nonsense.

Yeah, it was called the Grievance Studies affair. It was remarkable what they were able to pass off but, they never got a chance to conclude their project: They were exposed by an investigative journalist after the dog park paper started getting laughs on social media. That said they submitted 20 articles, of which 7 were approved, and an estimate was made that another 4 would have gotten through.

Mike Nayna has a page on YouTube, and he actually interviewed the players involved (James A. Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, Helen Pluckrose), as well as two academics (Bret Weinstein, and Heather Heying) who were ultimately forced to leave their positions at Evergreen College (huge riots broke out -- it was fucking insane!).

You can find it in either the playlist or the upload section.

 

[bbear]

Yeah, it was called the Grievance Studies affair. It was remarkable what they were able to pass off but, they never got a chance to conclude their project: They were exposed by an investigative journalist after the dog park paper started getting laughs on social media. That said they submitted 20 articles, of which 7 were approved, and an estimate was made that another 4 would have gotten through.

Mike Nayna has a page on YouTube, and he actually interviewed the players involved (James A. Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, Helen Pluckrose), as well as two academics (Bret Weinstein, and Heather Heying) who were ultimately forced to leave their positions at Evergreen College (huge riots broke out -- it was fucking insane!).

You can find it in either the playlist or the upload section.

I suspect I am about to be very boring.

All publisher, editor, writer, reader relationships are built on trust. The reader trusts the publisher to publish truth. Sometimes the reader will make a mistake, trust a source that has no good editor review process. That is the serious claim behind this joke, that Social Science in general has poor or absent or at least non-self correcting peer review process thus allowing bunk to be published. But no process can be judged adversely for falling for a deliberately aimed falsehood.

In Academic circles the trust is implicit. Everyone is searching for truth adhering to principles and methods i doing so. And the more independent replication is difficult, the greater the degree of trust. Huge damage is done by those who falsify. The longer it takes before the falsehood is discovered the more papers need checking, correcting, and any papers that relied on those.

When something is sincere but wrongly practised that can be sorted and stopped by peer review. But a deliberate falsehood is not detectable. There are no checks against research fraud. Academic freedom to be wrong comes with the absolute rule - you may not lie.

Those who break that rule pay a heavy price.

Someone could fabricate metallurgy data. Or wind tunnel data.. Or make up WW2 Historical references. It could take weeks for even a super site like this one to spot the wrongdoer and give them the deep six

Put it another way. Stolen valor is not permitted especially when touted after the fact as a joke and a test. The cases are completely different but the principle is the same. Freedom to claim whatever you like, comes with an equally absolute prohibition on deceiving any public and thus any publisher.

None of which proves that all is well in Social Science or that glaciers are victims of oppressive patriarchy or whatever. You need a different test.

 

[pgeno71]

I agree with those that think this is a joke/hoax. I think it is another case of Alan Sokal. In 1996, Sokal wrote an article claiming gravity was a social construct and not an immutable force of nature. He included all the cultural studies jargon and postmodern concepts to support his conclusions. He wanted to see if a nonsense piece could be published if it "sounded" good and appealed to the editors' ideologies and biases. Hence, it was published. Although I think it probably was a "Sokal Test," given the state of academia today, I would not be surprised if he actually believes it.

 

[bbear]

I agree with those that think this is a joke/hoax. I think it is another case of Alan Sokal. In 1996, Sokal wrote an article claiming gravity was a social construct and not an immutable force of nature. He included all the cultural studies jargon and postmodern concepts to support his conclusions. He wanted to see if a nonsense piece could be published if it "sounded" good and appealed to the editors' ideologies and biases. Hence, it was published. Although I think it probably was a "Sokal Test," given the state of academia today, I would not be surprised if he actually believes it.

I agree with those that think this is a joke/hoax. I think it is another case of Alan Sokal. In 1996, Sokal wrote an article claiming gravity was a social construct and not an immutable force of nature. He included all the cultural studies jargon and postmodern concepts to support his conclusions. He wanted to see if a nonsense piece could be published if it "sounded" good and appealed to the editors' ideologies and biases. Hence, it was published. Although I think it probably was a "Sokal Test," given the state of academia today, I would not be surprised if he actually believes it.

If you mean does he believe that a certain sort of vibrations and audible sounds plus flashes of light from pressurised deep ice fractures presage a slippage catastrophe then i suspect he is looking into that - conventionally skeptically, along with a number of other ideas.

If you mean does he believe in the value of psycho-social polysyllabic victimisation science writing I suspect he had no choice. To write up his important finding from listening to everyone with experience of glaciers not just hairy ex-military blokes he had to publish in a relevant journal. So he had to adopt that style of writing and thinking, using the conventional terminology, feminist definitions. He used the community to get access to the feminist studies subjects (the artist "listening to ice melting", the indigenous with their folk tales of catastrophe's in the long past) so to acknowledge his sources properly he had to engage with those ideas. if only as an exercise in flexibility.

But don't believe me, I gave a reference earlier to his interview.

 

[swampyankee]

I propose a version of the Turing test. When 50% of the general public cant tell the difference between an academics output and a spoof the academic is removed from the university and put on the comic circuit.

That's a tough test! A far better "spoof" article is the Sokal paper (https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html)