At 01:58 AM 2/16/01 +0000, you wrote:
>Dennis,
>
>Having the salary data would be desirable. If, on the other
>hand, we are only interested in the question "Did the female
>biologists at MIT perform as well as their male colleagues,"
>your comment is incorrect.
>
>The "dinky" sample size is the entire population, and the
>answer can be ascertained. See my Gork example earlier in this thread.
doesn't matter ... what we have are far too few cases ... to know what is
going on ... either on with THESE particular people ... or, in some larger
population sense
it is like i look out my window ... and the first 4 women i see ... i note
their approximate walking speed ... and the first 5 men i see ... i note
the same ... and i actually take the time to watch them go from point A to
point B (assuming they don't bump into a tree someplace) ... and note that
it took the men a mean amount of time of 14 seconds ... and, the women
took a mean amount of time of 7 seconds ...
so, by these data ... which i use as a proxy measure of quickness ... i
make the bold judgment that these ... not women in general ... but THESE
... women, are quicker in general ...
this is exactly what you are doing with your groups of 5 and 6
THE PROXY MEASURE IS BAD
>I think there is a conflation of issues. I definitely resonate
>to your suggestion [allow me the temporary luxury of interpretation]
>that the "utility function" relating citation counts, publication
>rates, etc. to academic value is uncertain, and there are a host
>of other factors to consider before determining whether anyone
>was discriminated against at MIT.
>
>However -- MIT's assertion that it could not release any information
>without compromising privacy is obviously untrue. For example, I'm
>sure that, had we put you in charge of the investigation, you could
>have found ways to describe the committee's methodology [assuming it
>actually had any] that would not involve releasing individual data,
>but would serve to allow the public to evaluate the process.
>In fact, you've made a start at doing that in your posts.
how can they have it both ways ... ? most institutions are public
institutions and, these data should be part of the public record ...
we know the salaries of senators ... governors ... the president ... etc.
.... i don't see any constitutional case for keeping this information
secret???
part of the problem in this case and others like it is ... keeping SOME
information FROM the public ... while revealing OTHER information ... that
appears to be cogent to the case that the reporters want to make ...
not a good idea
if these women were all that serious about this problem ... citing salary
data would not be a problem for THEM ... but, i bet the men would not go
along with that
>MIT went further than denying the public access to the facts,
>or any information about the facts. It specifically denied
>that the differential outcomes occurred because the women
>"were not good enough," and declared the very question out
>of bounds, i.e., "the last refuge of the bigot."
again ... allowing some tidbits to be put out in the press ... but not
others ...
>Our data show that the MIT report authors may well have
>engaged, consciously or otherwise, in a compression fallacy.
>But of course we do not know enough to reach strong conclusions.
>MIT will not let anyone know.
which means ... they should be seriously criticized ... and rightfully so ...
while i have NO idea of the merits of these particular cases ... i bet MIT
does not want (nor would any other big institution where salaries can be
massively different) to really air the facts ... and the background
particulars, the deals that were made on appointment, etc. ... it would NOT
make them look good ... but of course, to hide many of the important pieces
of this puzzle ... sure does not earn them any brownie points either
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