From: rons@hardy.u.washington.edu (Ronald Schoenberg)
Newsgroups: sci.math.stat
Subject: Re: Let's Make a Deal!
Date: 29 Sep 92 15:21:01 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Sep29.152101.12250
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <80686@ut-emx.uucp> bill@bessel.as.utexas.edu (William H. Jefferys) writes:
>In article <1992Sep24.222349.7583@u.washington.edu> rons@hardy.u.washington.edu (Ronald Schoenberg) writes:
>#
>#My view, and probably Savant's view, is that the discussion about the
>#problem being ill-posed is really a way of avoiding admitting that a
>#lot of mathematicians and statisticians screwed up a problem that she
>#got right.  Did all those Ph.D. mathematicians and statisticians who
>#sent the wrong answers while patronizing her and treating her like a
>#child because she didn't have a Ph.D. (or possibly also because she
>#was a woman) get the problem wrong because it was ill-posed?  No, they
>#got it wrong because they screwed up in spite of their Ph.D.'s.  And
>#now they want to deny that they screwed up by saying that it was
>#ill-posed.  Maybe a few got it wrong because they saw a different
>#problem, but I don't think very many.  And I think the proper response
>#to Savant should have been a little respect instead of some technical
>#diversion to slake some male egos.
>
>Well, no. After her first article was published, I
>wrote her and pointed out that (1) her problem was
>ill-posed, but (2) if posed more carefully (it only
>required changing a few words, for God's sake) then
>she was correct. I never received the courtesy of
>a reply. I think there is more than mathematicians'
>and statisticians' egos involved. MvS's ego is
>equally involved, and her response to a critical
>article in (what?) Journal of Mathematical
>Education (?)--the reference was posted recently--
>shows this very clearly.)
>
>Bill

Your problem (and the problem of the people who wrote the article that
appeared in the American Statistician) is a complete inability to see
things from Savant's point of view - and I interpret this as an ego
problem.  Suppose that you were untrained in mathematics or physics,
that one day you read somewhere that the speed of light was the same
in every direction, and that after some thought about it you crank out
the special theory of relativity.  However, you make a small error in
your assumptions, but your conclusions were correct anyway .  Now how
would you feel if the only responses to your achievement were about
your error?  Wouldn't you want some credit for having duplicated a
renowned result?  Wouldn't you think that the people who failed to
give you credit for you achievement and concentrated instead on your
error had some kind of ego problem?
  There's no question that if Savant hadn't had a well-defined ego
there would be no problem as well.  But is that how women are supposed
to be in your mind? compliant non-egos that never complain when they
get no credit?  That is how I interpreted the American Statistician
article - men who refused to accept what she did achieve by focusing
on a technical error, thereby preserving the egos of all those
mathematicians and statisticians who got the wrong answer and who
could now talk about the the technical error instead of about their
own incorrect answers.
   In my opinion, the whole business of attribution in math and
science is male ego and greed run amok - but that is another whole discussion.