I read the book. It’s more that he found out that tactic worked. Basically Feynman did the typical clueless geek “Why is it that I’m so nice to girls yet they date jerks!?” thing because time and time again he would go to a bar, treat a woman “like a gentlemen” by buying her drinks and the like, only to watch her go home with another man. He then learns about the tactic, has the sandwich incident talked about in the link, and then comes to the conclusion that “no matter how effective the lesson was, I never really used it after that. I didn’t enjoy doing it that way.”
I would sum it up by saying he was a typical sexist for his time. He did not think of all women as “bitches” but he did see them as different then men and treated them differently. He tended to experiment at the expense of others so, while I’m no expert on Feynman, based on the book as a whole I highly doubt that the events in that story were how he typically treated women.
Indeed. He was a good brother to his sister, a good husband and lover to his dying tubercular wife, and later on a good father to his kids. This story is at a time in his life when he was a heartbroken widower and lashing out, and, well, it was in a bar. A place where people go to use and be used.
I said earlier his book is good to read as a warning. I do suspect that was in part Feynman’s intent in writing it.
I’d like to believe that, if anyone had called Feynman on the objectionable nature of his actions and beliefs, he might have at least considered changing his ways. Unfortunately, it’s too late to test that out.
How do you know it is even “approximately” true? How wide are your limitations for “approximately”?
I’m not trying to be pedantic about the definition of “nerd” so much as I’m pointing out an unjustified claim, that “50% of nerds are women.” According to whom and on what basis. Just because half the population is female doesn’t mean that they fill half of everything having to do with people, good or bad. Just because one of the themes of this thread is equality doesn’t mean that there is an equal number of male and female “nerds”. Again, that could be true, but you can’t just assert it without a sound basis. (Well, you can assert it, and others can point out that is all you are doing, asserting.) Bald assumptions like that are one of the areas where false certainty comes from - something Feynman was very much against. You are the easiest person to fool, he said, so you need, first, to keep from fooling yourself.
My understanding is that, if anything, it’s the other way round. I.e. that the old term for what us modern typeface consumers usually call a font used to be (and still is) called a fount by those in the typesetting trade. It does seem, however, to make slightly more sense to help guide ‘fount’ in the general direction of eruption, given that we don’t tend to call water-erupting things ‘fontains’.
You’re right, in that reality is more nuanced that what I described.
I find that the qualities that make up a “good” (whatever that means) person are independent of time period, culture, race, gender, etc. In that sense, I just don’t see the point of defending Feynman by saying, “Oh, he was kind of a sexist, but so was everyone back then.” Yeah, sure people were, but they still are, and that’s still a bad thing.
It’s very hard to measure to what extent a novel reflects the author. Yes, Card is overtly homophobic, but (as far as I can tell) none of that makes it into the Ender series. He’s not even the worst example. T.S. Elliot was antisemitic. Evelyn Waugh was a religious conservative. Lev Tolstoy treated his wife like shit. I can understand that, from a critical reading perspective, it is important to take all that stuff into account. I guess, all I want is for people not to let prejudice against the writer as a person cloud their judgement of the writer as…er…a writer.
Also, for the sake of argument, I could imagine a situation when a scientist’s qualities as a person would directly impact their work (say, a biologist studying the differing structures of male and female brains). In social science, it happens all the time. That is, there is a giant gray area between the data and the interpretation of the data that’s filled with personal opinion.
Well I grant you, I only know that myself and pretty much 99% of my female friends are nerds. At least, by my understanding of the term “nerd”. I’m not asserting that 99% of women are nerds, though. Just that I know as many females in that category as males.
It’s kind of interesting that the “probably half” is such an issue to you, though. What’s the stake in proving it wrong? Does it really matter so much?
I have no interest in proving it wrong. I’ve already stated twice that the number could be correct, or it could be an under or over statement. My objection is to asserting facts without evidence, and assigning them statistical values. Do you wonder at Wikipedia when it has notations that say “Citation needed” and wonder why it “is such an issue to you, though. What’s the stake in proving it wrong? Does it really matter so much?”
In Finland they have a word for people who are overstimulated by grammar and punctuation.
Pilkunnussija
A person who believes it is their destiny to stamp out all spelling and punctuation mistakes at the cost of popularity, self-esteem and mental well-being.
They’re out there. They’re reading this right now. Judging, smirking, analyzing. They care nothing about the actual meaning or fun of writing, but care everything about whether you used that semi-colon correctly. While we – perhaps inappropriately – call them Grammar Nazis, the Finns have a much more fitting name: “pilkunnussija.”
I remember this part of Feynman’s book. I personally think there is some truth to what he was saying, even if it seems crude and old-fashioned now. Basically, that people, regardless of gender, tend to lose some respect for another person who gives them too much. When it comes to men and women and courting, I’ve found that to achieve the right balance of withholding can be very effective. Takes a smart and confident person to figure this out and put it to work for them.
I’d also say his use of the word “bitch” is way too strong and unnecessary; I’d replace it with “opportunist.”
But on the other hand, we also have a tendency to believe that each historical figure who made a discovery, or invented an invention, was the only one who could or did accomplish said accomplishment. History books tend to record the highly visible and assertive people, those who not only invent, but also publicize and promote, over those who simply do the former and not the latter. There’s a not insignificant venn-diagram-overlap between the arrogant and the heard. The idea that we shouldn’t expect better of people, just because “well, a lot of geniuses were jerks, you wouldn’t give up physics would you?” poses a false choice.
