In the news

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vorpal blade
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Re: In the news

Post by vorpal blade »

Reading the article “Women far more silent than men on school boards” carefully you find out that women are more silent only when they are outnumbered, which they usually are on school boards. When men are outnumbered they are more silent than women. And when men do not greatly outnumber women they do not tend to rudely interrupt women. Did you notice that?

It could therefore be concluded in equal honesty, leaving out the important factor of being outnumbered, “Men rudely interrupted in meetings by women and contribute less (although when they do, they bring different considerations).”

I blame the misrepresentation on the way the article is written, and the way Karpowitz and Mendelberg choose to slant their findings to support an obvious agenda which antagonizes the relationship between men and women.

I’m willing to discuss it. Also interesting to discuss are the factors which would need to be taken into account before any meaningful research could be conducted.
Amity
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Re: In the news

Post by Amity »

Vorpal, what parts of the article led you to draw those conclusions? I read the article Portia linked a few times and I don't see anywhere it discussed findings about majority-female school boards.

I also take issue with your assertion that the study and its authors are biased. (Full disclosure: I know one of the study authors very well.) The research has been published in very respected, peer-reviewed outlets (some of the best in political science, frankly) and the observational and experimental conclusions match. That's pretty much the gold standard for academic research. It's a very well-designed study, so I'm inclined to agree with its conclusions.
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vorpal blade
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Re: In the news

Post by vorpal blade »

Good questions, Amity. I don't have much time now to discuss it, but I'll try to highlight some of my thinking.

There are a number of times when it is expressly stated that when women are in the minority they speak less than their equal share of the time.
Women only spoke as often as their male counterparts when women held at least 60 percent of the board positions
When outnumbered, women used only 72 percent of their fair share of the speaking opportunities
The scholars previously documented the tendency for ordinary women to stay quiet when outnumbered, but Karpowitz was surprised to see it on school boards.
In majority-rule groups with few women, men were more likely to rudely interrupt their female peers.
Now, notice it doesn't say that women never speak as much or more than their male counterparts, it is only when they are outnumbered. Had it been the case that women never speak more than the men the authors would have said that in every case men speak as much or more than the women. Apparently when women comprise at least 60 percent of the board positions they speak at least as much as the men, otherwise the authors would claimed it was true 100 percent of the time. I believe it therefore follows that when women are in the majority they speak more than the men. Otherwise the authors would have said so, as they seem to be trying to make as strong a case as they can against men. I hope that makes sense to you.

As far as the article indicates the school board study was not presented in a respected, peer-review outlet. It is part of a chapter in a new book. Besides, I have little respect for peer-review. I've taken part in peer-review, and what it amounts to is that if you agree with the thesis of the authors you get a pass. If you disagree then the article doesn't get published. Editors select reviewers who agree with the editorial position of the magazine.

Clearly the authors are using highly subjective language and tests. Who determines what is a "rude" interruption? How can the authors objectively tell what the participants do or don't feel, as they pretend? Why do they think they can tell you what the motives are of men who interrupt? How do they know something was "hostile" or not?

A man is often the person in charge of a school board meeting. It is his job to interrupt or stop someone who is off topic. Why was this factor apparently not taken into consideration?

People tend to talk more on a subject they are familiar with and know something about. If men are in a majority they are going to talk about the school's football team or something else they know about. It has nothing to do with sexism or trying to dominate the discussion or not allow equal participation.

There are statistics like "On 10 of the 87 school boards, women spoke or made motions at less than half the rate of a board member’s equal share." Why are their no statistics about how often women dominated? This has every appearance of being cherry picked data.

A real study would not be taken from minutes of a school board meeting. I don't believe these are word for word transcripts; they are what someone decided was important to record. It could be that whoever made the minutes just decided that what the men said was more germane to the topic, or more important than what some of the women said. A real study would have all the data which others could look at and draw their own conclusions. A real study would have objective definitions and evaluations by those who did not have a stake in the outcome of the study.

The authors claim that “Women have something unique and important to add to the group, and that’s being lost at least under some circumstances." (from a link in this article). How can they know that something was lost? They don't know what was not said, so they don't know if it was important or not.

I'm out of time for now. See the excellent discussions pro and con that Mic0 referenced.
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Tally M.
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Re: In the news

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vorpal blade
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Re: In the news

Post by vorpal blade »

I thought this was exciting news. http://www.ldsliving.com/story/76813-ge ... dium=email

How many speakers do you suppose will choose to speak in their native language this conference? Will President Uchdorf? (I doubt it, as he seems to speak English so well, but you never know.) Since the church is growing so fast outside of the United States, will there come a time when most of the talks are not in English?
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Tally M.
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Re: In the news

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Katya
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Re: In the news

Post by Katya »

I've been idly wondering about the distribution of how many levels people typically do in Duolingo before they quit, so I put together this infographic this morning based on my own Duolingo friends:

1-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
2-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
3-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
4-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
5-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
6-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
7-XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
8-XXXXXXXXXX
9-XXXXXXX
10-XXXXX
11-XX
12-X
13-X

Note that each language is counted separately, so some of the people who only reached level 1 in some languages have gone much farther in others. (Also, a few of these people are still active on Duolingo, so this graph would probably change slightly over time, but the general shape would remain the same.)
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Whistler
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Re: In the news

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you're making me want to do some more duolingo in change your data!
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Dead Cat
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Re: In the news

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And I'm going to become your Duoling friend so you can add my data!
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Digit
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Re: In the news

Post by Digit »

Tetley insures taste buds of its $1.6 million tea tester
Looks like Macauly Culkin with horn-rimmed hipster glasses and a '70s mustache. Congrats to him for convincing everyone else that his opinions on taste are worth that much. It reminds me though of the studies showing that wine tasting is junk science.
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Amity
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Re: In the news

Post by Amity »

"A Road to Mental Health Through the Kitchen"

I thought this might appeal to some of the many chefs and mental health advocates we have here.
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Digit
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Re: In the news

Post by Digit »

Newborn with twin fetuses inside. No, the newborn wasn't technically pregnant; the twin fetuses were the product genetically of the parents of the newborn, but somehow got located inside "big sis" early on in development :shock:
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Digit
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Re: In the news

Post by Digit »

Hmm...Study: U.S. Army Officers Lie Routinely. The CNN article. The 53-page Strategic Studies Institute report, which is free to download and read.

Page 18 of the PDF, in the section "The Deluge of Requirements" says something interesting, though.
Strategic Studies Institute wrote:In the rush by higher headquarters to incorporate every good idea into training, the total number of training days required by all mandatory training directives literally exceeds the number of training days available to company commanders. Company commanders somehow have to fit 297 days of mandatory requirements into 256 available training days.
Maybe they have to lie on forms so much just to get through literally impossible requirements that they get desensitized to lying.
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Digit
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Re: In the news

Post by Digit »

"Liberty" U, where students will get fined if they didn't attend Ted Cruz's speech.
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Shrinky Dink
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Re: In the news

Post by Shrinky Dink »

Apparently, in Indiana feticide is a thing and a woman can go to jail for having a miscarriage.
*Insert Evil Laughter Here*
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Digit
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Re: In the news

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Funny. A little girl gets the opportunity to ask Stephen Hawking a question and she uses it to ask the cosmological effect of a singer she likes quitting the band he was in.
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Digit
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Re: In the news

Post by Digit »

Something interesting I read about the type of blindness actor Roseanne Barr is unfortunately experiencing:
CNN wrote:Macular degeneration takes away her central vision, and glaucoma is taking away her peripheral vision
I wonder if that means she sees like this, for example:
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S.A.M.
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Re: In the news

Post by S.A.M. »

Transcripts of the oral arguments at the Supreme Court regarding same sex marriage:

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_argume ... 1_2dq3.pdf

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_argume ... 2_jiel.pdf
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Digit
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Re: In the news

Post by Digit »

Boy, Jim Bob Duggar's got some cojones, saying "Looking back, we did the best we could under the circumstances." Then playing the victim.
The parents told Kelly that they feel like their family is under an "unprecedented attack" partly because of their Christian beliefs.
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Digit
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Re: In the news

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This one's finally decided now. Somehow I don't think the catastrophic downfall the dissenters bemoaned about will materialize.
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