Comments on: Congratulations!

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:46:03 +0000

With only two citations, I have insufficient data to chose intelligently.

There have been suggestions that recommendation writers on the whole have a tendency to undersell female scientists.

Looking for correlations between superlatives and gender in a list of fellows (where presumably everyone is great) might help illuminate this hypothesis.

For anyone interested in doing so, here’s the 2006 list:

http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/2006-fellows.cfm

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:48:52 +0000

Well, Lab Lemming, the difference in wording clearly indicates that the American Physical Society is SEXIST! Even the bestowed title of “fellow” is gender-loaded!

Or, maybe, the difference in wording merely indicates that the writer of the first accolade is more inclined to color his (or HER) prose with superlatives, irrespective of gender, as compared to the writer of the second accolade, and both awardees are equally deserving of their awards.

You decide!

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 09:40:53 +0000

Congratulations to both. But I was wondering:
Is there a fundamental difference in their respective contributions that cause one to be modified with “outstanding” and the other to be modified with “her”?

By: Fermi-Walker Public Transport

Fermi-Walker Public Transport — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:57:30 +0000

Yes, congratulations to you both.

By: Alan Haggard

Alan Haggard — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 11:02:29 +0000

Congratulations to you both. My sincerest hope is that this honor may inspire you to continue your valued work and to attain even higher achievements from this day forth.

By: JoAnne

JoAnne — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 03:29:42 +0000

Sean will have to drag me, kicking and screaming, into grey eminence. It’s no wonder he missed my nomination last year since I show absolutely no sign of either grey or eminence.

By: John

John — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 02:53:11 +0000

Thank you, Sean!

By: spyder

spyder — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 02:37:33 +0000

I believe this is the point where the really old curmudgeons (grey eminences) gruffly, yet passionately, release some hurumps and clang their pewter mugs of Pimms #7. “Well done, by Jove, well done,” “smashing good that” and so forth.

By: astromcnaught

astromcnaught — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:37:31 +0000

Wow, fantastic. May the honours not diminish your enthusiasms for blogging!

And that ‘grey eminence’ bit might just get you killed Sean.

By: Daily Physics

Daily Physics — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:47:49 +0000

Whoop whoop! Big up for Conway and Hewett – congratulations. Some very nice work has come from these two. I actually got to go to a talk by John Conway at CU Boulder. He was discussing experiments at the LHC. Informative and appealing!