This is in reference to the Fisher v. University of Texas case, which is expected to be decided soon.
Unfortunately we don’t have a “logic” tag, because this letter does a fantastic job at simply explaining the informal fallacies committed in the hearing.
I often wonder how the legal system would be different if it were run by physicists, logicians, and other scientists. Sigh.
This may be an unpopular opinion I hold, but I don’t think that the letter does a damned thing explaining the informal fallacies in the hearing. It talks about how important the social justice (their words) and diversity cause is in the classroom, how these students suffer and how these other students have an unfair advantages,
This is clearly illustrated (I believe) by one paragraph in particular I’m a bit disappointed by:
To be intellectually thorough and honest, it is not merely enough to claim something is “completely fallacious”: one must also explain how it is so, rather than relying on one’s position of authority (though this is a somewhat popular approach in academia).
Further, the “exclusion of people from physics solely on the basis of the color of their skin” should be view critically with its negative–“inclusion of people into physics solely on the basis of the color of their skin”. Both propositions are silly on their face, and neither is quite the current state of affairs. As critically-thinking people, we must recognize this.
Still further, “we have learned and discovered all the amazing facts about the universe through working together in a community” is a claim that I think is, if not incorrect, at least open to debate. How much fundamental physics work was done by a handful of small teams or even sole scientists? How many of those were dismissed as crackpots until they were finally vindicated? The claim of community here is, in my opinion, not where they want to pitch their flag.
~
Don’t get me wrong–I am absolutely in favor of promoting equality, of increasing access to education, and most importantly of supporting people’s desire to dream and learn and accomplish.
However, in our shared zeal to accomplish these things, we can’t keep letting such shoddy logic and writing and appeals to injustice determine our policies!
Why? Because, quite frankly, in five years or ten years, when the pendulum swings the other way (as it inexorably does), any progress built on such illogical foundations will be lost–all it takes is one demagogue to point out, “Well, yes, but what percent of science has been accomplished by $group in the last $numberofyears?”, and then the house starts to fall.
And yeah, it’s rubbish, but you can’t assume that policies gained through mere popularity will remain unassailable from that same engine turning a different way.
They do explain how it is so, but the argument isn’t a step-by-step proof. It’s prose. You gotta analyze the entire text in context to get the point.
Here they show exactly how physics is interrelated with social realities, and refer to 2 books on the subject. Their claim which you quoted is not a false appeal to authority.
For thoroughness, here’s another example of extracting logic from prose:
In the above quote, they show that Justice Robert’s questions are meaningless because they are loaded against minority students; the loaded proposition is that “minority students must bring a unique perspective in order to benefit a physics class.” They show this proposition is fallacious by turning the question around, which is a technique called reduction ad absurdum.
Specifically, they use the contrapositive of the loaded proposition as the absurd case, which makes the absurd proposition become “white students must bring a unique perspective in order to benefit a physics class.” This shows that Roberts' question is, at best, implicitly elitist, or at worst, assuming white supremacy.
That their argument is not a step-by-step proof makes me a bit sad, because it’d be so much clearer to understand and critique–a position I think you would agree with. :)
In reverse order…
The more reasonable statement that Robert’s could’ve made would’ve included both the original question and its complement. I would hold that the thing being missed here is the possibility that both questions are equally meaningless. It may be entirely possible that there is no benefit to be had of a unique social perspective, of any variety, in a physics class.
I’m rather suspect of this claim about the nature of science, given the quality of research currently going on. This sort of position has a heavy undercurrent of “and my research direction deserves funding”, and again I would suggest that historically the best science has come not of consensus but of conflict, of a minority saying “Well, no, really, here’s the data, reproduce it”. This talk of consensus and bias-free science puzzles me a bit, least of all because it only takes a few moments of googling or chatting with grad students at a bar to raise serious questions about it.
Also, referencing two entire books is somewhat hand-wavey to me: if I have to read hundreds of pages of ancillary material to understand a policy point, when perhaps a few pages of numbers and simple logic should suffice, the proposal may well be more a matter of taste than of correctness.
I kind of agree, but I also realize that not everything is reducible to formal methods of logic. I spent a lot of time in college studying contemporary continental philosophy, in which philosophers break out of the rigidity of analytic methods in order to establish new conceptual ground, and I think they succeeded, but their methods apply mostly to ethics, politics, social. Not the same as computing, where you have this closed environment to test your logic.
Turns out one of their references is a 20-page paper, publicly accessible. I haven’t read it yet, but I plan to after I eat dinner. (Edit: Just read it. Really good, has all the evidence you’re asking for, especially page 7 of the PDF (page 885 of the publication)).
Along similar lines, this article on feminism in science explains how there has been a recent divide on this very topic of whether science can be divorced from the social environment. There’s the objectivist (Popperian) perspective, and the subjectivist (Kuhnian) perspective. The question comes down to: do scientific theories progress incrementally toward an end goal (Popper), or is scientific theory conditioned by the current social paradigms (Kuhn)? From what I’ve read about the history of science and philosophy, it’s clear to me that scientific theories are conditioned by social paradigms (think of how Galileo was persecuted, etc). And certainly these social paradigms are in turn conditioned by the society, and who has influence in the society. In this situation, diversity would be beneficial because it prevents a single demographic in society from being able to wield all the social power, and thus influence scientific theories.
With the above framework in place, I’m not sure if you’re arguing for the Popperian or Kuhnian perspective. You say that the best science comes from conflict, well there was certainly a conflict between Galileo and the Catholic Church. In that case, the Church had tremendous social power, and used it to influence the scientific theory.
Edit: typos.
Good points…I’ll have to do a bit more reading on the Popperian and Kuhnian stuff and get back to you (though, from a rough cut, I’m guessing I’m leaning towards Popperian).
Thanks for the reference into the paper. :)
The Law tag might be a better choice!
Ah, I forgot about that one. Thanks
I have a hard time placing my finger on why, but this letter does not strike me as completely intellectually honest. Perhaps it’s the repeated leaning on their authority as REAL PHYSICISTS AND ASTRONOMERS as if that gives them significant authority on the nuances of the racial problems our society faces, or perhaps the extremely firm stance on something that’s issues of extraordinary complexity like social racism and affirmative action as a solution.
One argument I am surprised was not mentioned by the court, perhaps because of how obvious it is, is that in a highly competitive environment, affirmative action can cause all minorities to be seen as “possibly only here because of diversity”, regardless of their individual qualifications. Based on first-hand accounts of people who have experienced this, the psychological effects are far from negligible. Imagine being extremely qualified, perhaps even over-qualified for your role and yet having each person you meet start unsure if you are qualified. You’re constantly having to prove “no, I’m here because I’m actually qualified, not because of affirmative action”, and it’s maddening.
In other words, if you are a minority, and you are qualified, it’s probably best to stay away from institutions which practice affirmative action. As with most things in social science, it’s hard to measure its net effects, but I think it’s obvious that affirmative action is a very blunt tool.
Isn’t the sentiment implicit in this statement the very sentiment that affirmative action is trying to eradicate?
Specifically, this statement implies that minorities have an inherent inability or disadvantage when it comes to doing science, that for some reason science is best done by an elite few. The rest of us need some extra help in order to succeed at science, and affirmative action is the “extra help” - it gives the minorities extra abilities.
On the contrary, affirmative action policies exist to eradicate this very idea. Affirmative action acknowledges that brilliant minds can come from the most unlikely or impoverished backgrounds. The letter cites some references to this effect. The problem is that these unknown, and yet very capable individuals may never get the training they need in order to achieve their full potential. Instead they get bogged down simply trying to escape whatever is oppressing them (working a dead end job, just trying to put food on the table, etc). The affirmative action programs exist as an attempt to create opportunities for people where they might not otherwise exist.
So it’s a problem of opportunities, not qualifications or abilities. Minorities may have all the same abilities as the middle-class white guy, but the white guy will have many more opportunities than the minority will every have. Affirmative action tries to level the playing field in terms of opportunities.
Great point, thanks for reiterating and expounding on that part of the letter – I think it’s the strongest piece. As burntsushi said, I’m definitely talking about just one part of the internal perception of affirmative action at competitive institutions, not the intent or reality of such programs.
I think re-branding any efforts as “leveling the playing field” or “correcting biases in methods of evaluation” makes a lot of sense and making an effort to avoid triggering any thoughts of reparations or top-down social design is important. For example, spending resources on making college more affordable and making sure all kids feel that that family wealth (or lack thereof) won’t play a factor in their educational or career options.
In this particular case, I think it’s important to realize that college comes at a relatively late part of a young person’s development. While affirmative action in admissions gets a lot of press because it fits so nicely in the political left-v-right dynamic, efforts towards equaling the playing field earlier would be significantly more effective and less controversial.
It seems your comment addresses the intent of affirmative action. The GP is explaining an outcome they’ve observed as a result of it.
Fair point. But when a program doesn’t return the expected outcome, it means there’s a problem with the implementation, so you go about debugging and fixing the program. You don’t avoid the program altogether.
Not necessarily…
I’m happy to know that this document exists, and doubly happy to see two physics professors from my own alma mater signed it. It is frustrating to see a Supreme Court justice make strong assumptions about a field that is not their own without consulting participants in that field. I support the onus is on the field itself to offer a correction to the incorrect claims, although that is not a particularly encouraging system of fact finding, particularly for the country’s highest court.
(As an aside, with their most recent hiring the CSU, San Bernardino physics faculty is now over 50% female. This is something the department, the school, and a number of the students are rightly happy about, given the consistent underrepresentation of women in STEM fields.)