Diversity And Expertise

An article in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education discusses a new report from the National Academies argues that it is “‘inappropriate’ to ask advisory-committee candidates about their voting records, political-party affiliations, or views on particular policies….” Candidates, it says, “should be chosen for their expertise and not their politics….”

We need sound science, sound science and technology leadership, and sound science and technology advice,” John E. Porter, a former Republican congressman from Illinois and the chairman of the panel that prepared the National Academies report, said in a news conference on Wednesday. “These are nonpartisan goals.” Mr. Porter, a lawyer, said it could be “illegal” to ask such questions under some circumstances.

In science, it would seem, some think that merit and expertise should reign supreme and “diversity” should play second fiddle, if indeed it is allowed to play at all.

But I wonder. I wonder if Mr. Porter and the worthies at the National Academies would think it similarly inappropriate to ensure that advisory panels are balanced by race and sex. It is not self-evidently clear that race and sex are more relevant to scientific advice than, say, one’s position on nuclear proliferation or how to balance environmental and developmental concerns.

And if it is wrong and possibly even “illegal” to introduce any criteria other than scientific excellence in the selection of members of advisory panels, why should that concern not be manifest in the selection of candidates to receive scientific education in colleges and graduate schools and in the selection of professors to teach in them? Why do the National Science Foundation and other organizations spend so much time, effort, and money, as this NSF document puts it, “to help increase the participation in science of under represented minorities”? (See here, here, and here for other randomly selected examples.)

Say What? (15)

  1. notherbob2 November 18, 2004 at 5:53 pm | | Reply

    I have been waiting to use the term “canard” and your post gives me the perfect opportunity. Of course, you have simply overlooked the fact that there is a good living to be made in science and that is perhaps different from what the boards and panels you discuss are designed to do. Since excellence is not any minority’s (or majority’s) exclusive trait, the absence of appropriate minority representation would be scientific evidence of something wrong. Doing something to correct that would seem to be in order. Don’t know that the same reasoning couldn’t be applied to most boards and panels. Sometimes common sense works better than trying to apply a principle. Your post is a canard.

  2. Michelle Dulak Thomson November 18, 2004 at 7:13 pm | | Reply

    notherbob2, what has the fact that “there is a good living to be made in science” to do with anything?

    And what means this:

    Since excellence is not any minority’s (or majority’s) exclusive trait, the absence of appropriate minority representation would be scientific evidence of something wrong. Doing something to correct that would seem to be in order.

    What is “appropriate minority representation,” please? Parity with the general population? Do you really believe that any panel not being (say) 50% female constitutes “scientific evidence” of “something wrong”? I’m not trying to be snide (well, OK, maybe a little), but I really would like to know what you mean.

  3. John Rosenberg November 18, 2004 at 9:07 pm | | Reply

    nother…: Alas, you should have waited a bit longer to throw “canard” around; the only one here is the one you hoisted yourself on. Who decides what an “appropriate” number of women/minorities is? You? If you’re so sure than an absence of an “appropriate” number is evidence — excuse me, scientific evidence — of something wrong, you need to take a detour and familiarize yourself with all the situations in life, and in too many court cases to count, where “underrepresentation” was NOT evidence of anything wrong.

  4. Michelle Dulak Thomson November 18, 2004 at 10:23 pm | | Reply

    Ummm . . . John, please don’t tell us that notherbob2 “hoisted himself on a canard.” That would be an indecent assault on a duck. Isn’t this a family-friendly site?

  5. Kenneth Jordi November 19, 2004 at 9:25 am | | Reply

    It used to be a petard, preferable one’s own, to get hoisted by.

  6. notherbob2 November 19, 2004 at 10:13 am | | Reply

    Of course, the makeup of any given panel or board is irrelevant. A study of all of a given type of panels or boards would be the proper test. Also, of course, we need to include all that statistical stuff to eliminate correlations that are due to known factors. Say that 90% of all proctologists are male; I would expect that a majority of any panels or boards on proctology-related subjects would be male. So, I think that reasonable people having the results of such a study could smell a rat if there was one.

    My post was a bit of a troll in that 10,000 attorneys have litigated this subject and therefore it is one where anyone with reasonable research skills can produce several volumes on any aspect of the issue they wish. No point in any mere blog posters holding forth on the subject, some would say. My point was simply that good old barnyard reasoning might produce a better result than the litigation process. I know, what gall to question our sacred litigation process, which many people believe, is guaranteed to produce the very best answer to any issue. Well, the emperor has no clothes as we discovered in the O. J. trial. Applying more and better attorneys simply obfuscates the issues and the result is often grotesque. Some would say more and better professors

  7. notherbob2 November 19, 2004 at 12:31 pm | | Reply

    Please excuse me for double commenting. I meant to call attention to John Rosenberg

  8. Dave Huber November 19, 2004 at 12:34 pm | | Reply

    John — a liberal elitist?

    Wow, since when??

  9. Michelle Dulak Thomson November 19, 2004 at 1:04 pm | | Reply

    notherbob2, I think the point that I (the other elegant elite liberal snob — wow, the things you learn about yourself online!) and John were trying to make is that “the absence of appropriate minority representation” can’t be “scientific evidence” of anything, let alone of “something wrong,” until we know what you mean by “appropriate,” what you mean by “evidence,” and what you mean by “scientific.”

    If all you mean is that if panels drawn from professionals in particular fields are significantly skewed gender/race-wise from the ratios in the pool of qualified candidates, then you have a point. I wouldn’t call it “evidence,” exactly, because any small pick from a large pool can turn out to look incredibly skewed (the way the National Book Award fiction finalists this year all turned out to be women living in New York City, for example). But it might bear investigating.

    On the other hand, if the comparison were to the general population rather than to the pool of candidates, you have to tread carefully and think through. Every racial or gender disparity in who takes up a given profession is not a “problem,” nor necessarily an indication that discrimination has taken place.

  10. Michelle Dulak Thomson November 19, 2004 at 1:07 pm | | Reply

    My, my. Proofread yourself, idiot [she mumbles to herself]. Sorry.

    If all you mean is that if panels drawn from professionals in particular fields are significantly skewed gender/race-wise from the ratios in the pool of qualified candidates THERE MIGHT BE “SOMETHING WRONG,” then you have a point.

  11. notherbob2 November 19, 2004 at 2:02 pm | | Reply

    Ms. Dulak Thomson gets it (I think). If, for three years running the book awards go to women living in NYC (except for one winner from Keokuc who, as it turns out, is a woman who USED TO live in NYC) then, absent information that shows NYC residence being an overwhelming advantage in writing, I’ve heard enough. Change the facts to be a panel of writers who will select what fiction is recommended in high schools throughout the country and we have our test case. Replace the entire group who selected the winners. All of them. Right now. Hopefully, the next few years’ winners on the first vote won’t all be women who reside in NYC. If so, they pay the price -instead of the out-of-city writers who might otherwise pay.

    Attempts to assure that no one pays leave us with the situation we face today. The problem is that no one could be found to fire the current evaluators as a group. No guts, no glory. Still, if there is a flaw in my thinking, I should have exposed it with this example.

  12. notherbob2 November 19, 2004 at 4:32 pm | | Reply

    OK, I am sorry. I have killed another discussion. I even left in a mis-spelled word and made a reference to a duck. I just can’t speak with liberals without offending. Sorry. Here is what I was getting at: There is a large community of people who believe that solutions emerge from their judicious study of discernible reality. I disagree. People need to act. That creates a new reality. And while the studiers study that new reality new actions will create new realities for them to study. As the actors get feedback from the studiers, they can alter their actions. That is the way to do things. We have too many studiers and not enough actors. If Big Labor dominates the marketplace, no one makes any wages because we cannot sell the resulting overpriced products. We have so many studiers today that we cannot take action to solve problems. Soon we will be able to take no action at all because litigation will prevent it. Let

  13. Anonymous November 21, 2004 at 8:53 am | | Reply

    Notherbob2 has about 90 percent of the thought right in his opening canard:

    He writes:

    “Since excellence is not any minority’s (or majority’s) exclusive trait, the absence of appropriate minority representation would be scientific evidence of something wrong.”

    The evidentiary leap to an unsupported conclusion is when he says it is “scientific evidence of something WRONG.” It is “scientific evidence” of “something”. You are all correct to point out it could be reflected by aggregated differences in individual choices – nothing wrong with that. More precisely, it is scientific evidence that individuals from different groups have a predisposition to certain behaviors – whether that is wrong is not a foregone conclusion, which certainly brings into question his belief we “must do something” (of course, his policy “shoots in the dark,” since he freely admits to not have a precise handle on what causes this “problem.”

    I am inclined to side with bob though in agreeing, not “scientifically concluding,” that gross group disparities in certain fields is an indicator of “something wrong.” Let me place the blame though at the feet of preferences directly, regional failure of K-12 education directly, and preferences indirectly because they are a “cheaper” non-solution to K-12 problems for universities and politicians.

    Preferences directly harm minority science enrollments by creating a “tracking” system, where minorities are encouraged to go into “softer sciences. Here I rely on an “insider” to the system, Sallyanne Payton, an African American Law School Prof (worked for Nixon and Clinton) at U-M writing privately to U-M President Duderstadt in 1989. Payton had real-time access to the LSAC enrollment data, the source of Dr. Sander’s recent conclusions. Quoting:

  14. John Rosenberg November 21, 2004 at 12:14 pm | | Reply

    Last Commenter: If you’d care to send me your name and email (which you can do by email and not here), I’d like to follow up on a point you made.

  15. Cobra November 21, 2004 at 11:00 pm | | Reply

    An Anonymous poster writes:

    >>>More precisely, it is scientific evidence that individuals from different groups have a predisposition to certain behaviors – whether that is wrong is not a foregone conclusion, which certainly brings into question his belief we “must do something” (of course, his policy “shoots in the dark,” since he freely admits to not have a precise handle on what causes this “problem.”

    One of the problems that those against using proportionate representation statistical data to show discrimination is that often, that same person will use race-based statistical data as “scientific evidence” to show that those discriminated against deserve it.

    The 800lb gorilla of the whole situation of course is segregation in America, and since no poster has offered a solution to that, no poster has offered a legitimate answer to the question of racial discrimination.

    –Cobra

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