Feminist Professor Thinks "Rigor" is Evil

[EEVblog]

I know we have covered Purdue & Donna Riley before:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/prof-social-justice-warriors-destroying-engineering/250/

but this new video popped up and because it's very much on-topic it should get an airing:

I expect this thread to get out of control and eventually locked like the previous one, so please try and surprise me...

[Towger]

It is all too much...  You need to watch some old episodes of Fred Dibnah.  Back when a man was a man, a lad were a lad and a woman's place was in the home rearing the children and making a big plate of steak and chips for her man's dinner.  When he turns up after a few pints down the pub. :-)

https://youtu.be/YnH7cw0ql1I?t=9m21s

[ataradov]

Well, I read it as "Rigol" at first, and I tried to imagine what kind of crazy logic would lead from feminism to thinking that scopes are evil. The actual thing is much more boring.

She does not seem to be to bright. That's ok, happens sometimes.

[raptor1956]

Oh Dave, better lock this now -- I smell nothing good will come from this. 

That was a painful watch!


Brian

[ataradov]

have an independent thought, right?

She is free to have any thought she likes. But she is also misrepresenting the process of engineering in her speech, and using that misrepresentation to prove her point.

* Based on the part seen in this video, I have no clue who she is and what else she did/does.

When somebody says that the purpose of the word rigor is asserting white male heterosexuality, that's  how you know they are a feminist.

[ajb]

Yet another shrill, clickbaity misrepresentation of a person's pretty reasonable ideas by a triggered, immature, cocky white male engineer who can't possibly comprehend that he isn't a saint - or take an ounce of criticism without making a 45-minute crybaby video - and who just wants to be famous on YouTube. No better than Thunderf**t

All of this.* 

* Yes, the point where I ended the quote was deliberate.  Whole other kettle of fish there.

[VEGETA]

> feminism
> logic
error 404, cannot find a match

[ataradov]

who never paid attention in their humanities courses.

Neither did I. You know what bothered me about humanities? The lack of scientific rigor. Anyone can say anything they like, and it all counts, since none of those disciplines defined ways to move themselves forward in a meaningful way. I don't get how any of those people stay employed.

[Mr. Scram]

The only reason these subjects are as much discussed as they are is because we discuss them. "Don't feed the troll" is one common saying, and "stop making stupid people famous" another. Both could arguably be applied to the situation.

[Ampera]

wew laddies, we got some triggered people in here.

Opinions are a hilarious business that can be immensely fun to deal with. What amuses me is the assumption that people take when someone attempts to put a discrediting opinion on the internet. It's always seen as somehow rejecting someone's right to a personal opinion, and how they are a "triggered, immature, cocky white male engineer" or part of the "reddit neckbeard army".

Let's get this straight for one second here. If someone posts an opinion on the internet (or even publicizes it anywhere) it is absolutely not only guaranteed, but completely and totally alright for someone else to give a personal opinion back. It's how the world works, and if you are personally surprised and/or upset that there tend to be factions of people with like-minds putting up opinions against another faction of people with like minds, you have proven to me that you have never engaged in politics.

I also try to keep my mind open, and if I want to, I can almost always see past a person's opinion to like them. I'm not shallow enough to hate someone purely because of an idea they wish to express. My criteria to dislike someone has to be with who they are as a person, not a single idea they had.

I'm actually a bit surprised coming in here, as the forum here is normally filled with people who are more on the side of anti-SJW. I always laugh when I see someone use the fact that someone is white as an excuse as to why their opinion for whatever reason is harmful, or shouldn't count. Getting into the minute aspects of racism, however, is something I do not with to disrespect this forum with.

I consider myself an egalitarian. I look at the whole concept and picture of human interactions, and when I feel like I want to put in my two cents on a topic considering equality, I try to consider both sides of the argument and pick which one I believe in. If there is one constant in the universe, it's that anybody can treat anyone like shit.

Engineering IS rigorous work. It's something that takes a LOT of time, effort, and mental skill. Just because someone doesn't like that fact, doesn't mean that it can change the school of thought. I don't believe anybody is ever innately unable to perform any task. The line of who can and who can't is split more on who you are, how your brain is made, and how you were brought up. I am ecstatic to see more women in the same field I wish to go in, but I also want to enter it with the same love and understanding that I am not only willing, but wanting to bestow to every single person in the field regardless of who they are.

I do, however, love it when the EEVBlog gets controversial or political. It highlights the essence of this community's personality, and (hopefully) the ability for everybody to accept an opinion and still remain friends. I have conservative friends that I may even agree with sometimes, and I have people on both sides of the spectrum that I absolutely not only disagree with, but come close to even despising for what they wish to do, but I will always try to give them the benefit of the doubt through conversation and debate, because often time I miss something and my opinion can be completely changed.

Ranting over, I get a bit carried away with this stuff. Twitter doesn't let you puke out this much, so it's nice to do it once in a while.

[ataradov]

Well, we also expressed OUR opinion, yet we've been called "triggered" and other presumably offensive words.

It is OK to have an opinion and express it. It is not OK to be in a position where people have to listen to your unsubstantiated opinion (like in case of mandatory university courses).

Those lectures appeared to be not mandatory, and it is fine. But unfortunately aforementioned humanities get proliferated with such ideas, and everybody wanting a degree has to sit though that stuff, and take exams.

[Ampera]

Well, we also expressed OUR opinion, yet we've been called "triggered" and other presumably offensive words.

It is OK to have an opinion and express it. It is not OK to be in a position where people have to listen to your unsubstantiated opinion (like in case of mandatory university courses).

Those lectures appeared to be not mandatory, and it is fine. But unfortunately aforementioned humanities get proliferated with such ideas, and everybody wanting a degree has to sit though that stuff, and take exams.

I have no problem being called anything offensive, in fact I take great pleasure in knowing my arguments are so good and so noteworthy, it brings others to insult me. It is a question of if you dislike an opinion, making it bigger than it would be otherwise may defeat the purpose, but there's also the fact that without opposition, there may never be anything to stop someone putting it into play.

I am a bit scared to go to college, personally, as I don't know what I will have to endure or be forced to partake in. I'm going there to learn, that that is all I want to go there for. I don't want to have to sit through hours of a presentation being pawned off as being on the right side of history then have to be forced to agree to that.

I love opinions. Everybody has one, and they are all hilariously amazing.

[Ice-Tea]

If I was anything but a white male pig, I'd be highly offended by her. So, only 'we' can be rigourous (sp?) and this puts everyone else at a disadvantage?

Please.

[DimitriP]

She is free to have any thought she likes

...and if the thoughts were original that would be a good thing
...however here is where she probably got her "thoughts"
 (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/27/eight-words-sexism-heart-english-language )
All she had to do is find the ninth word and keep talking for an hour about it 

Is Donna Riley a plagiarizing wench? I dunno. Maybe just a good news clipping spinster

[Ampera]

lolguardian

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

What a waste of time... She is wrong, he is an imbecile (but with a title), not sure yet who of them I dislike more. D'oh, the world isn't perfect. Move on.

[EEVblog]

I am a bit scared to go to college, personally, as I don't know what I will have to endure or be forced to partake in. I'm going there to learn, that that is all I want to go there for. I don't want to have to sit through hours of a presentation being pawned off as being on the right side of history then have to be forced to agree to that.

This website might help you:
https://heterodoxacademy.org/
It ranks US universities based on their free speech policies etc
https://heterodoxacademy.org/guide-to-colleges/

[Ampera]

Welp, every major college around my area (that's on the list anyways) scores a red or close to it on FIRE, so I'm boned. 

That's about right, I live in a very blue state, and a lot of people get aggressive when you present ideas they disagree with.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

That's about right, I live in a very blue state, and a lot of people get aggressive when you present ideas they disagree with.

Oregon isn't exactly blue and Oregon/Eugene is redder than red in the scores.

[Ampera]

Oregon is as blue, if not bluer than New York. I'm more joking when I say that, though, it is frustrating either way.

[donotdespisethesnake]

The "academic with nutty views" is a typical academic meme, to be honest a lot of academics are quite detached from reality. There is no reason to treat female versions different to male ones : just ignore them.

I guess that in today's climate, academics succeed just as well by "getting clicks" as they do getting citations, she got her name in the media, job done.
Now, the views of [male] scientist who created the anti-vaxxing campaign were dangerous and led to real harm. He is the sort of problem scientist we should be worried about.

However, I did wonder, even though what she said is 100% BS, there might be something interesting in the data. Sscience is by definition an objectivist activity. The purpose is to find the "right" answer. Are men generally more objectivist than women? Probably not, but there are subset of people in the autistic spectrum who tend to be like that, and maybe those people are more likely to men. I suspect it is not males that bias science towards "male views", but that science tends to self-select people who have more objectivist traits.

To be controversial, I posit that a species that develops intelligence bu has few objectivist members, and predominantly relativist views, would never develop advanced science, and therefore not become space-faring. Humans may be a peculiar species in that regard. Until we can study other intelligent species we will not know for sure.

[amyk]

Well, I read it as "Rigol" at first, and I tried to imagine what kind of crazy logic would lead from feminism to thinking that scopes are evil.

Me too. It's capitalised, in quotes, and on an electronics forum. I thought it would be about someone who couldn't even get the name right.

[Ampera]

The even funnier part is when I first read his post, I actually thought this entire thing was ABOUT scopes and how scopes were somehow misogynistic. That would be hilarious, but I would not be surprised if someone came out and actually claimed that.

[coppice]

have an independent thought, right?

She is free to have any thought she likes. But she is also misrepresenting the process of engineering in her speech, and using that misrepresentation to prove her point.

* Based on the part seen in this video, I have no clue who she is and what else she did/does.

When somebody says that the purpose of the word rigor is asserting white male heterosexuality, that's  how you know they are a feminist.

Its also how you know she knows little about engineering in the US. I haven't walked into an engineering department in the US in the last 20 years where the majority of the people were white. There is usually a large contingent of Asians - mostly Indians and Chinese - outnumbering the white people. When I first started visiting the US in the early 90s, most of the senior engineers where white. As those young Asian engineers have matured they have spread right through the ranks. Engineering is still overwhelmingly male in the US, but it sure isn't overwhelmingly white any more.

Have you noticed who the most rigour oriented people are in an engineering group? The Indians and Chinese. Education in Asia teaches people to always strive for rigourous mathematical support for their ideas. Donna Riley conflates rigour with complexity, which is ridiculous. The rigour in much of engineering requires nothing more complex than high school maths, like Pythagoras' Theorem and basic statistics.

[Fungus]

Does she really not even know how to read a dictionary?

She should get together with Meredith Perry. They'd make a great cringe-comedy duo.