When I studied university-level science, most of my lecturers and many of my fellow students were women. When I?ve reported science news, as often as not the researchers I interview are women. The popular narrative that women are somehow an oppressed minority in the sciences has therefore always puzzled me.
The media-elite obsession with championing a gender narrative seems not only misleading, but is in fact deeply unscientific. But then, much of what is reported as ?science? by the media bears little relation to actual science. After all, if you believe the media, Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the world?s leading scientists rather than just a media tart who has contributed bugger-all to actual science.
More importantly, gender is of little importance to the practice of science. One of the key tenets of the scientific method is universalism: identity is irrelevant to scientific claims. But identity means everything to the overwhelmingly left-wing media-elite. Thus, they are determined to promulgate a spurious gender narrative, no matter what the facts.
Equally, opposite voices are just as determined to deny facts entirely in their rush to dismantle the ?progressive? narrative.
quote.
In its rush to politicize on the basis of gender, the world?s first computer-generated image of a ?black hole,? the mainstream media has once again been caught propagating politically-correct ?fake news? by falsely attributing the image?s creation to a female whose algorithms weren?t even used to generate said image. End of quote.
This is not completely true, and is just as much ?fake news? as the claim it is attacking. The truth is that Bouman neither single-handedly created the coding used to generate the image, nor had nothing at all to do with it. The truth is that this project, like almost all modern science, was very much a team effort. Quote:
For days, Left Cult writers, pundits, and politicians hailed Katie Bouman as some kind of hero for supposedly single-handedly coding the data that ultimately generated the black hole image ? something that Bouman herself initially claimed on her personal Facebook page when she captioned a celebratory photo of herself with the words:
?Watching in disbelief as the first image I ever made of a black hole was in the process of being reconstructed.?
[?] Not only that, but Bouman?s coding ?contributions? didn?t even make the final cut ? meaning she contributed a whole lot of nothing to the final creation. End of quote.
Note that Bouman is not claiming that she ?single-handedly coded the data?. Moreover, the claim that Bouman contributed ?nothing? is grossly false. Three separate algorithms were used, one of which Bouman indeed worked on.
Huff is at least onto something when he criticises the ridiculous media circus that was created around Bouman. Quote:
But none of this stopped the fake news brigade, along with dimwitted politicians like socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), from publishing all sorts of sexist, woman-worshiping nonsense about how Bouman has somehow earned a unique place in the history books as a female contributor to science. End of quote.
That much is correct. And Bouman, to her credit, tried to correct the record. Quote:
The postdoctoral fellow took to social media once again to correct the record ? kind of. Bouman, presumably out of reluctance, highlighted the fact that the spotlight for this accomplishment ?should be on the team and no individual person,? adding that ?[f]ocusing on one person like this helps no one, including me.? End of quote.
Huff not only goes on to repeat false claims about primary developer Andrew Chael, but his snide ?presumably out of reluctance? is horribly unfair to Bouman and ?presumably? based on nothing but his own animosity. Bouman did the right thing and she is entirely correct: the idiotic media gender narrative is inaccurate and unhelpful. Her own colleagues rightfully agreed. Quote:
[Project contributor Sara] Issaoun claimed in a separate tweet that the spreading of fake news to the contrary ?is not Katie?s fault but due to extremely misleading PR she had no involvement in that was blown out of proportion and harming all involved.?
?[?] it?s important to set the facts straight and let the collaboration and its people be heard and celebrated for their true accomplishments as part of the many challenging aspects of this project,? Issaoun added, challenging the notion expressed by some that telling the truth about this fiasco somehow represents an ?attack? on Bouman. End of quote.
gender.news
Well, yes, when you?re responding to fake news with more fake news about someone, then that can be fairly characterised as an attack.
Science reporting, like most of the legacy media, is absolutely abysmal. Trying to rope science to your identity-politics hobby-horses, one way or the other, is not just dishonest reporting but bad science.