Related papers: On merit and equity in math
Over the past decades, researchers had put lots of effort investigating ranking techniques used to rank query results retrieved during information retrieval, or to rank the recommended products in recommender systems. In this project, we…
Opportunities, such as access to education or family background, shape income inequality by influencing the chances of economic success. Unequal opportunities create uncertainty about whether success is merit- or luck-based. We examine how…
Development of several alternative mathematical models for the biological system in question and discrimination between such models using experimental data is the best way to robust conclusions. Models which challenge existing theories are…
Once upon a time, scientists' worth was measured by their ideas, proofs, and perhaps how eloquently they debated Hilbert's problems at seminars. But now, citation metrics have come to center stage and handed us new masters: FWCI and CNCI.…
The purpose of this manuscript is to gather together a large amount of source material pertaining to women in mathematics, from studies of girls in elementary school through data on females winning prizes for mathematical research. Along…
This essay, originally published in the Sept 1990 Notices of the AMS, discusses problems of our mathematical education system that often stem from widespread misconceptions by well-meaning people of the process of learning mathematics. The…
It is explained in detail why the Anthropic Principle (AP) cannot yield any falsifiable predictions, and therefore cannot be a part of science. Cases which have been claimed as successful predictions from the AP are shown to be not that.…
In this paper we analyze the status of some `unbelievable results' presented in the paper `On Some Contradictory Computations in Multi-Dimensional Mathematics' [1] published in Nonlinear Analysis, a journal indexed in the Science Citation…
What is Statistics? Opinions vary. In fact, there is a continuous spectrum of attitudes toward statistics ranging from pure theoreticians, proving asymptotic efficiency and searching for most powerful tests, to wild practitioners, blindly…
Mathematicians have traditionally been a select group of academics that produce high-impact ideas allowing substantial results in several fields of science. Throughout the past 35 years, undergraduates enrolling in mathematics or statistics…
The American scientific community is reeling from funding cuts and policy directives that will debilitate scientific research and education. The underlying hostilities fueling these attacks have intensified in recent years as the COVID-19…
In the pursuit of understanding collective intelligence, the Hong-Page Theorems have been presented as cornerstones of the interplay between diversity and ability. However, upon rigorous examination, there seem to be inherent problems and…
"Mathematicians, like physicists, are pushed by a strong fascination. Research in mathematics is hard, it is intellectually painful even if it is rewarding, and you would not do it without some strong urge." [D. Ruelle]. We shall give some…
University level mathematics in a number of countries is under pressure to `decolonise the curriculum'. This paper considers, as a test case, a possible `decolonisation' of linear algebra. This is a representative case, since linear algebra…
Using the National Academies report, {\em Data Science for Undergraduates: Opportunities and Options}, we connect data science curricula to the more familiar pedagogy used by many mathematical scientists. We use their list of ``data acumen"…
This article presents a source list to support departments in creating more equitable, diverse, and inclusive mathematics classrooms. Included are relevant general-interest books, as well as articles and books presenting research results…
In a recent article, Falessi et al. (2017) call for a deeper understanding of the pros and cons of using students and professionals in experiments. The authors state: we have observed too many times that our papers were rejected because we…
In the name of meritocracy, modern economies devote increasing amounts of resources to quantifying and ranking the performance of individuals and organisations. Rankings send out powerful signals, which lead to identify the actions of top…
In many settings, an effective way of evaluating objects of interest is to collect evaluations from dispersed individuals and to aggregate these evaluations together. Some examples are categorizing online content and evaluating student…
Mathematical research is often motivated by the desire to reach a beautiful result or to prove it in an elegant way. Mathematician's work is thus strongly influenced by his aesthetic judgments. However, the criteria these judgments are…