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Comment by amichail | Hacker News Reader

It must be easy to publish research like this in a journal.

How could a reviewer -- even an anonymous one -- object? Doing so would put his/her career at risk.

Maybe it's best not to do research like this at all.

I have a huge problem with this edition of IEEE spectrum. It seems as if the editor tried to turn the version of IEEE spectrum into a political activist magazine (it is supposed to be a technical magazine for electronic and electric engineers covering technological developments, etc…).

The main article in that edition is “Powerless in Gaza” which is more political than technical (even if it were technical, it is not relevant).

Another article is supposed to be about Finland’s nuclear waste disposal system (by Sandra Upson) – which could have been extremely interesting if it wasn’t for the author’s completely unscientific anti-nuclear rant. This ridiculous article was discussed elsewhere: http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/crank-week-decem...

The “Math Quiz: Why do men predominate” is also one of those political articles. What is worse, the final page that is supposed to contain data, contains a graph that is illegible and data that doesn’t support the premise.

Worst IEEE Spectrum edition ever (in all fairness, it was a December edition).

It's very easy to criticize a paper's execution while at the same time supporting it's line of inquiry. Just bookend the review with stuff like "This is a very important topic that deserves rigorous scrutiny" and "I fear the authors' failure to address the points listed above weakens their conclusions." This kinds of reviews are actually the most incisive, because it means the reviewer cared enough to really reason through your arguments and find the flaws in them.

I don't know why you were voted down. Yes, speaking out against the conclusions of the article has harmed people's careers. Even mild speculating that maybe there's inborn cognitive differences between men and women can derail a science career.

It's crazy that people can't investigate the topic thoroughly - arguing "all culture no biology" demands a really high burden of proof. Arguing "some culture some biology" shouldn't be academic suicide, which it currently is.

But maybe for the good of society, this sort of research should be banned.

This could work. In the interests of truth, perhaps it'd work best if we did it very explicitly and publicly: "All research on potential mental differences between men and women are hereby banned for the good of society." Then we could start brainstorming what other research to ban for the good of society.

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