Prof: Social Justice Warriors Destroying Engineering

[Circlotron]

I don't know if a robotics club with money will attract more girls,
but I do think that a robotics club with girls will attract more money.

[Neomys Sapiens]

In her words (Wickman's italics):

'...de-centering Western civilization....'

THOSE other cultures and civilisations that have previously contributed significantly to humanities' technological prowess would have made post-68 garble-talkers like Miss Riley run crying home for mommy.
I doubt very much that the major cultures of Asia would have entrusted her even with driving geese.

'...and uncovering contributions of women...'

This polit-wench has no idea of the astronomical distance, from which the Ladies Hopper, Lamarr, Widnall, Tereshkova, Saenger-Bredt and many others are looking down upon her kind.

'... and other underrepresented groups…. We examine how technology influences and is influenced by globalization, capitalism, and colonialism…. Gender is a key…[theme]…[throughout] the course…. We…[examine]… racist and colonialist projects in science…."

Now I am too disgusted to follow this thoughts further. Even too disgusted to go into satirical mode, which would be quite easy here.

Fortunately, such problems can be solved by pure engineering.

[EEVblog]

I see a direct correlation between robotics budget and the sex ratio.

I think you are wrong.

[EEVblog]

you won't get any argument from me that globalization is a bad thing, but I suppose we are getting off topic here.

Getting back to the root of the topic, is SJW style thinking destroying engineering?
Well, does anyone here agree that what Purdue are doing is a good thing?
i.e. taking degree time away from studying actual engineering (which must be the case) to study this:

We examine how technology influences and is influenced by globalization, capitalism, and colonialism…. Gender is a key…[theme]…[throughout] the course…. We…[examine]… racist and colonialist projects in science….”

Anyone think that's making an engineering degree better?

[Corporate666]

Isn't that the whole point? Intelligence is not related to gender, social status, financial resources or race

That's completely untrue.  Intelligence is related to ALL of those things.

People often seem to (perhaps willfully?) not understand that the above descriptors do not pigeonhole someone into a specific box that they will never escape from, it simply describes the preponderence of characteristics among the group.

If you look at the bell curve for IQ between genders, you can see the difference.  The curve for males is wider (at the top and bottom), and corrected for other factors, there is still a difference between the two.  That doesn't mean men are smarter (it means that only as much as it means men are dumber).  But there is more clustering around the mean for women.

Ignoring the realities of our DNA is foolish and achieves nothing other than pretending these differences don't exist.  The differences in gender, race, etc should be celebrated and welcomed - not swept under the rug as if they don't exist.

[cdev]

Dave,

Historical context is always important but also there needs to be a priority of getting people what they need to know. yes, I do think humanities education is important for any degree granting institution - But four years are also surprisingly short.

She makes a very real point in that the model of what many mean by globalization is badly impacting a lot of people. Its increasing poverty. 

But, bringing that point closer to home, shes saying this to a captive audience. Is it appropriate to teach young would be engineers that? I think it depends on how much time and money they have to spend on it and what they want. It seems as if many people are already over extending themselves financially to go to college, and if that is the case, and they dont want to spend more, no, I dont think they should have to spend their money on non-engineering

If it could be proven that varying the content more made for a better engineering education (and I dont think thats unlikely) then I think sure, do it.. but unless it is proven, I dont think people should have to take that content if they don't want it.

Am I getting across what I am trying to say here, I dont know. We need to stop pretending we're rich or somehow exempted from the world in such a way that we can ignore economics of employment. For many people going to college is an attempt to improve their chances of getting a job in a tight job market. Other people have family money and dont care as much about getting the most education in hard core specifics perhaps. I dont know. Given the economy I think the "default" should be to spend the most time as possible on engineering.

[Corporate666]

Mansplained, by a white, male.   

Please, for the love of God, tell me you're joking!

No.  Wouldn't one think to ask women *why* they choose nursing over engineering and base one's conclusions at least partly upon a response from the demographic?  Wouldn't *that* be smart?

Your initial response is ridiculous.

Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist and professor of Psychology.  The video shown is a clip from a lecture he gave on agreeability, aggression and empathy.  If you think he is unqualified to speak on the topic of gender/personality and career, then you are making that claim for no other reason than the fact that he's a male - which is pure misandry and bigotry.  And if you wanted to be logically and ethically consistent, you would have to discount any teachings from anyone who isn't part of the thing they are teaching about.  So we can discount all political science teaching by anyone who isn't a politician, and any teachings of an economist about the stock/bond market if they aren't an active fund manager or trader, etc, etc.

You can quickly see that such claims are utterly ridiculous and serve no purpose other than to try to silence and shame others when their opinion doesn't match that of the critic.

[Cerebus]

you won't get any argument from me that globalization is a bad thing, but I suppose we are getting off topic here.

Getting back to the root of the topic, is SJW style thinking destroying engineering?
Well, does anyone here agree that what Purdue are doing is a good thing?
i.e. taking degree time away from studying actual engineering (which must be the case) to study this:

We examine how technology influences and is influenced by globalization, capitalism, and colonialism…. Gender is a key…[theme]…[throughout] the course…. We…[examine]… racist and colonialist projects in science….”

Anyone think that's making an engineering degree better?

I think something's passed us by here. Dr. Donna Riley, who's quoted above isn't in the Purdue School of Engineering, she's in the Purdue School of Engineering Education.

A quick random sample of the staff of that school shows about half the staff with engineering qualifications and the rest education or social sciences qualifications. So her quote isn't about educating engineers it's about educating people studying engineering education.

To slightly misquote a joke from my late friend Fred Wedlock:

Those that can, do,
Those that can't do, teach,
Those that can't teach, teach teachers,
Those that can't teach teachers, research education*.

In that context it makes a lot more sense; it may still be as futile (or not, as your opinion wishes) but it's not forcing "Gender is a key…[theme]…[throughout] the course" etcetera into the engineering degrees, just the engineering education degrees. That puts a very different complexion on it. I suspect an engineering education degree is as highly sought by the employers of philosophy**, sociology**, and "X** studies" graduates as any other degree. At least if they go to Purdue they will understand the gender implications of asking "Do you want fries with that?".

*The original ended, 'become education officers'.
** Fill in your own bogeymen, sorry bogeypersons. Personally, I've enjoyed many a beer fuelled discussion with graduate philosophers, and I think that only, at most, 50% of sociology majors should be burned at the stake.

[MT]

At the second largest university in CZ - biology, chemistry and medicine has more female students than males. And there are no encouragement campaigns. How it is possible ?

Because males have not yet figured out that the ""future"" is not electronics with tinn, silicon and copperclad rather circuits built by genes and DNA sequences. For the lucky Californians you have http://biocurious.org/

Look, most male engineers dont have a female they are to nerdy, just look how Dave had to struggle with all that dating book and stuff, so what could be better then to apply for a session of genes mixing ,loads of chick's there they say! 

Besides females are the greatest engineers ever, your mother was the lab that constructed you not even doing a prototype first, serial no1 from start, some of you got buggy software but that's your dads fault! 

https://diybio.org/

Dave said:
>>Even if you do that you may not see a much greater diversity in gender in a field like engineering, and that I'm lead to believe is what happened in the Nordic countries who are probably as a egalitarian as you can get in this regard.

The most egalitarian experiment was the former sovjets, there you really got 50% female engineers, and just look how it turned out: Lada cars!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39579321

[John B]

Something that needs to be clarified is the idea that what is being pushed into STEM (and almost everywhere else) is just broadening ones education to include "humanities". We aren't talking about engineers and scientists taking some light course in French literature, glass blowing or nude drawing. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, what students are being pushed into (in some cases forced to study in order to complete their degree) is very far left, post-modernist, marxist feminist, thrown in with some american-centric racialist ideology.

If the one promoting this stuff were honest and just admitted that they were essentially religious colleges where you can expect to be preached to, I would still think it's cancerous but they have the right to be cancerous I suppose.

However these are universities that take taxpayer money, and then require students to accept certain political ideas. At least to extent that you do not voice any disagreement, lest you be labelled as transgressive and face the consequences. This feels perilously close to forced political speech and belief with government backing.

Plus, the consequences for disgreement are not just imagined or hypothetical. Termination of employment, expulsion, physical verbal and legal harassment, facing down angry mobs and literal riots with people beaten, buildings and cars smashed and burned are all observed consequences.

[tautech]

you won't get any argument from me that globalization is a bad thing, but I suppose we are getting off topic here.

Getting back to the root of the topic, is SJW style thinking destroying engineering?
Well, does anyone here agree that what Purdue are doing is a good thing?
i.e. taking degree time away from studying actual engineering (which must be the case) to study this:

We examine how technology influences and is influenced by globalization, capitalism, and colonialism…. Gender is a key…[theme]…[throughout] the course…. We…[examine]… racist and colonialist projects in science….”

Anyone think that's making an engineering degree better?

Certainly not.

Want to influence those that will appreciate that BS, shove it down the throats of those in management and political studies or qualified engineers that for some reason want to go back for a second dose of brainwashing schooling. 

There's an old saying that should also apply to education of the specialized subjects: stick to your knitting !

[EEVblog]

Am I getting across what I am trying to say here, I dont know. We need to stop pretending we're rich or somehow exempted from the world in such a way that we can ignore economics of employment. For many people going to college is an attempt to improve their chances of getting a job in a tight job market. Other people have family money and dont care as much about getting the most education in hard core specifics perhaps. I dont know. Given the economy I think the "default" should be to spend the most time as possible on engineering.

We are talking about forcing education about gender/race/colonialism here, not income inequality etc.
Does anyone really believe this is appropriate in an engineer degree?

Gender is a key…[theme]…[throughout] the course…. We…[examine]… racist and colonialist projects in science….”

Let's not mince words, I think it's a complete load of horse shit to have that in an engineering degree. Purdue are a joke.

[floobydust]

Apply these Purdue Engineering Head's principles to any other profession, such as aviation, sports. I could do others but any proves how out to lunch this educator's perspective is.

In sports, we will lower the basketball hoop for inclusion's sake. Short people need to play too.
In aviation, we studied how technology influences things, gender, racism, colonialism and... did anyone learn how to land the airplane? Surely the plane will land itself.

In engineering, it's a bunch of bridges and buildings collapsing, some explosions and fires due to a SJW corrupting a profession.

"... applying liberative pedagogies in engineering education, leveraging best practices from women's studies and ethnic studies to engage students in creating a democratic classroom that encourages all voices."

Dr. Donna Riley at Smiths women's college.
Dr. Donna Riley, Kamyar Haghighi Head of the School of Engineering Education
the same person?

She has no place leading engineering unless this secures more funding and grants for Purdue 

[EEVblog]

I think something's passed us by here. Dr. Donna Riley, who's quoted above isn't in the Purdue School of Engineering, she's in the Purdue School of Engineering Education.
A quick random sample of the staff of that school shows about half the staff with engineering qualifications and the rest education or social sciences qualifications. So her quote isn't about educating engineers it's about educating people studying engineering education.

In that context it makes a lot more sense; it may still be as futile (or not, as your opinion wishes) but it's not forcing "Gender is a key…[theme]…[throughout] the course" etcetera into the engineering degrees, just the engineering education degrees. That puts a very different complexion on it. I suspect an engineering education degree is as highly sought by the employers of philosophy**, sociology**, and "X** studies" graduates as any other degree. At least if they go to Purdue they will understand the gender implications of asking "Do you want fries with that?".

Ah, interesting:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/Academics/Graduate

PhD in Engineering Education Program

Purdue established the School of Engineering Education (ENE)—the world's first such academic unit—in 2004, and along with it, the world's first engineering education doctoral program, for students who wish to pursue rigorous research in how engineering is best taught, learned, and practiced.

And their strategic plan:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/AboutUs/StratPlan.pdf

[X]

The way things are going on right now, it may not be long before the Backyard Brainiac, Garage Genius, Basement Scientist, or Midnight Engineer will be selected over a university graduate. This kind of rubbish makes the latest engineering degrees a complete joke. Even if it is "Engineering Education" there will be companies smart enough to avoid Purdue as a result of this inappropriate association.

Sometimes things become a world first because nobody else was stupid enough to bother.

[Assafl]

Bang bang. Goes the discussion. The bang bang police will force a solution to social problems by skewering the symptoms!

None, or one, woman of thirty men in the robotics club is a symptom of a malady. Money? perhaps. Money will attract talent? perhaps. But my experience has always been that it is far easier to attract money (e.g. sponsors) with talent, than it is to first have money and then attract talent (unless daddy is rich).

The main problem is the lack of talent. NOT the fact that few woman sign up to the club. Perhaps the women realize that the club isn't that good and would rather spend their precious time doing more effective things. Perhaps the club should supplicate for a local figurehead take the club under their sponsorship or do a really tough hackathon. But find away to attract the talent.

The major problem with the bang bang police approach is that they will try to force woman to join the club rather than figure out how to solve the talent problem with the little resources they have.

Now - Most of the best and brightest engineers are multi-disciplinarians. Many have more than one degree. I personally know people with engineering + philosophy, + law, +biology, +literature, +filmmaking, + agriculture, +finance, +physics & math, even psychology! for some reason I do not know any with sociology or anthropology as an additional subject.

Many of the greatest have hobbies we love to read about. Physicist idolize Feynman, engineers love to read Bob Pease's essay about what to do if a Porsche's alternator is falling - do you let it fall or - perhaps - sacrifice your foot? In fact all of the greats have big stories. Everything from pranks, sheep, weird projects they somehow got attracted to - and even - in time of war - build virtually impossible things (like torpedos, nuclear bombs, etc.) for social purposes or ideas.

But the postmodern police will have us believe that if one takes a third class physicist - and teach them to crack safe's (like Feynman loved to do at Los Alamos) - you'll end up with a Feynmen. This is where the seductive power of postmodern thinking invalidates itself as wishful thinking. It is BS and it doesn't work.

A third class engineer will be hard pressed to find solutions to the drift equation or Maxwell's equations. They will also find it hard (if not harder) to explain what tenets of universalism are at odd with postmodern ideas - or how the concepts of common law (obviously British) are implemented in the US - in constitutional as well as the laws of the land (statutes and case made).

In the broader context of thinking - the problem is what Kahneman and Tversky described as Heuristics in Decision Making. That the bang bang police people cannot really make a rational assessment of cause an effect (causality). Feynman had various interests because he was a maverick. He was not a maverick because he had various interests. They confuse cause and effect.

Same goes for woman in a particular field. Assuming you believe that intelligence is omnipresent, having few woman is a symptomatic of a problem What that problem is - and whether solving it is possible - demand a far more nuanced discussion than "affirmative action" or bang bang police - would have us believe.

And yes - the fact that there are few woman on this forum is a problem. What the problem is - and does it have a solution - I do not know. At the very least it will limit the participation on this forum to 1/2 of what it could be. Perhaps all we are is a geeky equivalent of a bike gang comparing the sizes of our - ahem - long range multimeters... Not very attractive...

But forcing women to join - that is not the solution.

[coppice]

And their strategic plan:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/AboutUs/StratPlan.pdf

That plan calls for behaviours which are:

being inclusive, collegial, and mutually supportive

Inclusive sounds pretty good. Collegial sounds a bit woolly. Mutually supportive? Do these people know what science and engineering are? If it ain't about people aggressively tearing holes in other people's work until a consensus emerges, it ain't science. Mutually supportive sounds warm and fuzzy, but its the path to irrelevance. Perhaps they really mean something like cooperative, and if they did, perhaps they should have said so.

[EEVblog]

And their strategic plan:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/AboutUs/StratPlan.pdf

That plan calls for behaviours which are:

being inclusive, collegial, and mutually supportive

Inclusive sounds pretty good. Collegial sounds a bit woolly. Mutually supportive? Do these people know what science and engineering are? If it ain't about people aggressively tearing holes in other people's work until a consensus emerges, it ain't science. Mutually supportive sounds warm and fuzzy, but its the path to irrelevance. Perhaps they really mean something like cooperative, and if they did, perhaps they should have said so.

They mean precisely what they say, at best.

[alank2]

In sports, we will lower the basketball hoop for inclusion's sake. Short people need to play too.
In aviation, we studied how technology influences things, gender, racism, colonialism and... did anyone learn how to land the airplane? Surely the plane will land itself.
In engineering, it's a bunch of bridges and buildings collapsing, some explosions and fires due to a SJW corrupting a profession.

Yep.  Let's keep lowering the standards for everything until we get to our future...  maybe sooner than the year 2500

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

[Delta]

This kind of crap has been spreading through universities for years now. It started with all the bullshit degrees (anything ending in "studies") and soft subjects, then into science, and has now reached engineering.

I've given up arguing against it.  I know that the sneering snowflake lefties that look down their noses at me for being a thick, ignorant, uneducated tradesman - will one day need me or one of my ilk when the lights go out or there's water pouring through the ceiling.  Let's see how your gender studies degree compares to my misogynistic, colonial, old fashioned toolbox!

[MrW0lf]

Dismantling western society is easy. You have not seen communism up close and cannot even imagine how it will feel for small man. In my childhood I got some of it on softest possible form (Estonia was sort of elite place in CCCP). It was ok for us since did live in countryside but in cities one essentially had no property or control over his life. You were assigned where state needs you. Now they groom whole western to feel more at home without home (constant travel), have no important belongings besides phone, carefully avoid creating family and when by accident succeed trust state. State knows best what to do with your kid.
But with all this there was some sanity in CCCP system. There was no praise of violence or abnormality, it was about engineering/building better country. Your goal was to be healthy sane worker bee and for good bees there were semi-ok apartments and even cars, boats, hunting, fishing etc basics for interesting down-to-earth life. But with this modern european policy when you should give jihadists your children to rape and home to live in it will be different form of communism without goal to build anything, only to destroy.
Interesting part will be when they start to heavily implement AI to keep stuff at bay because obviously humans cannot handle things. Suppose there will be no argument or discussion. AI said so, so it's optimal.
But before that there needs to be total chaos. Currently busy here to implement new govt worker policy where you have no specific workplace or physical document storage / belongings. Its all in the cloud and you pick some available desk from desk pool, or better sofa...

[MT]

Here , for all you angry middle aged white engineering males! (The modified libertardian slogan).
During her Virginia tech years, lot of social science talk, such as global competence whatever that means. Covfefe! Enjoy!


During her Smith College time:






During Program Officer in the division of Engineering Education for the National Science Foundation.


https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2017/08/engineering-education-social-engineering-rather-actual-engineering/

[Cerebus]

... If it ain't about people aggressively tearing holes in other people's work until a consensus emerges, it ain't science. ...

I think you just created a good example of why some people from non-science and engineering backgrounds might think that engineers and scientists need some civilising. Your choice of wording of "aggressively tearing holes" sounds very much like clawing your way to the top over the mangled bodies of your former colleagues. I'm sure that's not what you really mean, I'm sure you really mean rigorously examining each other's work for flaws or opportunities to improve the work (in a mutually supportive fashion, naturally).

Of course I might be wrong, you might be the sort of sociopath whose pre design review meeting ritual involves sharpening knives, but I suspect not; that kind of behaviour is reserved for board meetings. 

[coppice]

... If it ain't about people aggressively tearing holes in other people's work until a consensus emerges, it ain't science. ...

I think you just created a good example of why some people from non-science and engineering backgrounds might think that engineers and scientists need some civilising. Your choice of wording of "aggressively tearing holes" sounds very much like clawing your way to the top over the mangled bodies of your former colleagues. I'm sure that's not what you really mean, I'm sure you really mean rigorously examining each other's work for flaws or opportunities to improve the work (in a mutually supportive fashion, naturally).

Of course I might be wrong, you might be the sort of sociopath whose pre design review meeting ritual involves sharpening knives, but I suspect not; that kind of behaviour is reserved for board meetings. 

Do you think friends playing sports are not taking an aggressive approach as they play? This has nothing to do with how they get along outside the game. Typically when I am in technical discussions where people feel unable to apply a little aggression in finding fault with something proposed, they end up with a rather pear shaped solution.

[Cerebus]

... If it ain't about people aggressively tearing holes in other people's work until a consensus emerges, it ain't science. ...

I think you just created a good example of why some people from non-science and engineering backgrounds might think that engineers and scientists need some civilising. Your choice of wording of "aggressively tearing holes" sounds very much like clawing your way to the top over the mangled bodies of your former colleagues. I'm sure that's not what you really mean, I'm sure you really mean rigorously examining each other's work for flaws or opportunities to improve the work (in a mutually supportive fashion, naturally).

Of course I might be wrong, you might be the sort of sociopath whose pre design review meeting ritual involves sharpening knives, but I suspect not; that kind of behaviour is reserved for board meetings. 

Do you think friends playing sports are not taking an aggressive approach as they play? This has nothing to do with how they get along outside the game. Typically when I am in technical discussions where people feel unable to apply a little aggression in finding fault with something proposed, they end up with a rather pear shaped solution.

You miss the point, almost beautifully well. I knew what you meant, I think I made that clear; I also think I made it clear I was talking about how, say, a bunch of sociologists would perceive your choice of words. Then you go on to apparently argue for aggression as necessary or desirable, when I'm sure you mean 'energetic' or 'assertive' or 'determined'. Surely you can see how that would be perceived by exactly the kind of people we are talking about here, and exactly how they can use that to justify (even if only to themselves) the need to press some form of reform on us unreconstructed, middle aged, white, male engineers.

This struggle with, for want of a better moniker, these navel gazing pseudo-leftist 'equalizers' is one of words. We recognize them because of the phrases and words they use. In this case, words matter.

Oh, and now you're back in Blighty it's 'sport' not 'sports' - we'll have none of those Americanisms here thank you very much.