Talk:List of women in mathematics/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Who is a mathematician?

Sammy1339 (talk · contribs) has been removing the mathematician categories, and removing from this list, many people who are notable as mathematics educators or popularizers. These include Elizabeth Fennema, Susie W. Håkansson, Milagros D. Ibe, Lily Serna, Mamokgethi Setati, M. B. W. Tent (among others) all of whom have "mathematics" or "mathematician" in their lead sentence, as well as others whose notability is also mathematical but is expressed later in their articles. To me, a mathematician is anyone notable for some mathematical accomplishment, whether that accomplishment is in research (Mirzakhani), mathematical contests (Wood), publc outreach (Hart), or mathematics education. If their connection with mathematics is not something notable (say they earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics but then went on to do something else) I would agree with the removals but many of these people are notable primarily for mathematics, regardless of the fact that it's pedagogical mathematics rather than research. Sammy: please reverse your ill-conceived edits. And everyone else: please join in to discuss who should be listed if you disagree. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:53, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I tried to be very generous in determining "who is a mathematician", but I thought it would be uncontroversial to say that mathematics educators are not. I include in the term statisticians, computer scientists, applied mathematicians etc., and even human computers or arithmetic prodigies, and anyone who has published a mathematics paper or has or is pursuing a mathematics Ph.D. I'm not sure how to handle historians and philosophers of mathematics - usually they fit in those categories though. Some borderline cases for me are Karin Reich and Hourya Sinaceur. --Sammy1339 (talk) 17:59, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

You do realize that mathematics education is one of the topics covered by the International Congress of Mathematicians, right? See e.g. Anna Zofia Krygowska, who you inexplicably left included in the list, and who to my understanding is notable solely for her work in mathematics education, which included being a multiple-times invited speaker at the ICM. Also consider that "notable as a mathematics educator" usually means that the subject made some important contribution to the way mathematics is taught, not merely that they themselves taught mathematics. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:04, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

It's certainly an important subject, but I don't share your perception that a mathematician is anyone connected in any way to mathematics. I honestly thought these people were included in the list by mistake. I've never heard anyone refer to math educators as "mathematicians." Do coaches belong in a list of athletes? --Sammy1339 (talk) 18:13, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it may need to be decided on a case-by-case basis. On the one hand, Elizabeth Fennema is in Notable Women in Mathematics, a Biographical Dictionary, so who are we to say she's not a mathematician? On the other hand, Lily Serna is studying part-time in mathematics and is an "arithmetical guru" for a game show. RockMagnetist(talk) 18:17, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

In fact, Category:Sports coaches is a subcategory of Category:Sportspeople, yes. As for Serna: she's the popular face of mathematics for a lot of people. Should that not count? If we're voting people off the island, my vote would go to Loulou von Brochwitz (apparently working towards being a research mathematician but notable for something unrelated) but I think being exclusionary is the wrong mode to be in for this list. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:20, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

A "sportsperson" is not the same as an athlete, and a "mathematician," as I understand it, is someone who does or has expertise in mathematics. I was trying to be very inclusive, which is why I didn't remove von Brochwicz (though I wouldn't object to someone else doing so.) It's not a criticism of her work, but I don't think Fennema, a humanities scholar who has no mathematical qualifications at all, is a mathematician. --Sammy1339 (talk) 18:26, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we should use the same defining characteristic criterion that is used for categories (and indeed, by that criterion Serna would qualify, while von Brochwitz would not). RockMagnetist(talk) 18:57, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

For reference here's a complete list (so far) of the removed entries (each of which has also been removed from Category:Women mathematicians):

• Jo Boaler, British–American promoter of mathematics education reform and equitable mathematics classrooms
• Sue Chandler, author of English secondary-school mathematics textbooks
• Ada Dietz (1882–1950), American weaver who used algebraic expressions to design textiles
• Elizabeth Fennema (1928– ), researched attitudes of young women towards mathematics and their classroom interactions
• Barbara Goette (1908–1997), mathematics teacher, companion of Ludwig Roselius
• Susie W. Håkansson (1940– ), mathematics educator, director of the California Mathematics Project
• Milagros D. Ibe, Filipino mathematics educator, vice chancellor of the University of the Philippines Diliman
• Margarita Nolasco Santiago, Mathematics textbook author, member of Puerto Rico Senate
• Lily Serna (1986– ), Israeli–Australian arithmetical guru of the SBS game show Letters and Numbers
• Mamokgethi Setati (1966– ), first black female South African to earn a PhD in mathematics education
• M. B. W. Tent, American mathematics educator, mathematical biographer

—David Eppstein (talk) 23:30, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I've spent most of my professional life distinguishing between mathematicians and mathematical educators; a consequence of the cultural milieu that I worked in. However, as I've aged, the distinctions seem to blur and I can no longer hold on to that position. I am agreeing with David and think that we should be taking a very liberal definition of who a mathematician is – someone who uses their mathematical knowledge in some notable manner. Not everyone should qualify using this criteria, for instance the contortionist, even if she obtains her degree would not qualify until she does something notable with her mathematics. On the other hand, Maria Gaetana Agnesi is really nothing more than a textbook writer with no formal academic mathematical training - yet the work of this mathematical educator had a huge impact in spreading the "Gospel of the Calculus" throughout Europe, and she should certainly qualify. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 03:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

@Wcherowi: Calling Agnesi "nothing more than a textbook writer" is nonsense. She wrote an important research-level textbook which contained novel ideas, produced original research (see witch of Agnesi) and was elected to a professorship in mathematics at a university. She's a mathematician in every reasonable sense. You're also assuming that education theorists have mathematical knowledge - that's not necessarily true, as in the case of Elizabeth Fennema. Her work was influential and important, and I think it's no insult to her to say she isn't a mathematician. If you spent 25 years studying how students learn biology, you might become an important person in the life sciences, but you wouldn't be a biologist. --Sammy1339 (talk)

While you may disagree with my characterization, please get your facts straight. The witch of Agnesi is due to Fermat and she used it as an example to illustrate various ideas. The book was a textbook written to educate her siblings which she later polished and published. She was appointed to the chair of mathematics in Bologna by the Pope, not elected in the modern sense of that term, and did not serve. I think a reasonable case can be made that she was not a research mathematician. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 01:58, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure how valuable this list is in itself, but I find the practice of massively removing category designations without wide consensus objectionable. Certainly, if the removal was based on a mistaken perception that this would be uncontroversial, since that is plainly not the case, the changes should be reverted pending full discussion and consensus. Everyone makes mistakes, and it is a mark of wisdom to admit and correct them. Generally speaking, I agree with David that it is better to fail on the inclusionary side. Arcfrk (talk) 05:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I certainly did think these removals would be uncontroversial. I haven't reverted them yet, because most were added to the category a few weeks ago, and this is outside the pattern of other articles on math educators, as well as common usage. I started and RfC on the question instead. --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:47, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

• It is a common complaint that maths articles on Wikipedia are written in an inaccessible style which is quite inappropriate for a general encyclopedia. Disdain for ordinary arithmetic and people who are known for their facility with numbers or elementary education seems a similar ivory tower attitude. A good example is Carol Vorderman who is another game show personality. She is so well known to the general public that she has a range of textbooks intended to teach number skills to children such as this. We should not be elitist or snobbish about this; that would not be NPOV. People who are actually famous for their maths skills should be in this list, even if they are not college professors or research fellows. As we now see that we have different types of mathematician, we should subdivide the list accordingly. The current alphabetical sections are quite useless; nobody cares what letter your surname begins with. We should have sections which separate the different types. At the top should be the historical figures who are few in number - the Smithsonian lists just five. Then should come the other small categories such as showbiz types like Vorderman. Only then should we list the great horde of modern academics. Andrew D. (talk) 07:21, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

The guideline for stand-alone lists says that a list should have clear selection criteria, and it is best to state the criteria in the lead. I propose changing

"This is a list of notable female mathematicians."

to

"This is a list of notable female mathematicians, women who have made a notable contribution using their knowledge of mathematics." RockMagnetist(talk) 17:54, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

This definition would include everyone who has ever made a contribution to quantitative science in any form. Surely there's a distinction between mathematicians and physicists? I opened an RfC on this subject. --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Good point. RockMagnetist(talk) 02:43, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I think we should be using the policy WP:Verifiability to answer the question of who "is" and who "is not" a mathematician. If there is doubt over whether or not we should count somebody as a mathematician, then it is not up to us to make arbitrary rules to determine it. As an encyclopedia, we should be following the sources, and not impose our own preferred usage. Do published, reliable sources call that person a mathematician? The answer should settle it. If after looking at the reliable sources the issue is not resolved, and there is reasonable doubt about whether they should count, then according to Wikipedia policy we should not include them. Isn't it original research to do otherwise? Mark MacD (talk) 10:10, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

This approach is significantly more exclusive than anything I've proposed. I'm not sure we should exclude Vi Hart, who has coauthored six mathematics papers, even though she's not referred to as a "mathematician" in any RS. There was a discussion about this, where opinions seemed to be trending against including her.

I posted my RfC at lists of mathematicians instead of here, because I thought this was a much broader issue. (And I apologize again for the appearance of forum-shopping, which was inadvertent.) Looking around, though, it seems like almost all the examples are of women added to the list and categories by David Eppstein a few weeks ago. Male mathematics education professors, as far as I can tell, are never referred to as "mathematicians" on Wikipedia or in most other places. --Sammy1339 (talk) 14:53, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, just to clarify, I am not saying we should justify the exclusion of mathematics educators from the category by the history of said exclusion, which is the sort of nonsense described in WP:THREATENING2MEN. However, I do think we should apply the same standards to men as we do to women, so if we expand our notion of "mathematician" this way, we will have to add hundreds of new male ones. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:08, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow the argument here. This page is titled "List of X". If we have concluded that reliable sources do not back up the claim that somebody is a member of the group "X" (as apparently has been done in the case of Vi Hart), then they should not be included in the list. This is precisely the content of WP:LISTPEOPLE. Mark MacD (talk) 16:46, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with @Mark MacD. If there is a clear guideline that covers this case, we should follow it. Whether we perceive it as too exclusive is irrelevant - it is not up to Wikipedians to define a mathematician. If we feel that some people are being slighted, we could always start a new list of, say, mathematics educators. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:29, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

We don't need sources that say the precise words "X is a real mathematician according to Sammy1339's definition" to include them here — what we need are sources that say they made a contribution to mathematics. We are an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. The point should be to list people associated with mathematics, not to demarcate strict definitions of who counts as a "real" mathematician. And in the case of this list, whether the intent is that way or not, I suspect that the effect of this push to exclude non-researcher-mathematicians from being called mathematicians has a very sexist effect: first, women interested in mathematics down the years have been pushed aside to auxiliary roles as educators, textbook writers, etc., and now we have people like Sammy saying that contributions to mathematics of that type do not count because they are not research. I think we should include those people and I think the strict focus on the title of the article is a mistake. If the title is too narrow, we can change it. But these people are women who made contributions to mathematics and they should be listed here. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:36, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: I suddenly understand what this is about in light of the above statement about sexism. It's a fair point, although I have also expressed my concern about the optics of including a long list of math educators in a list of female mathematicians, especially when male math educators are never described this way. This can have the unintended consequence of confirming certain stereotypes.

We should have a definition of "mathematician" that at least somewhat agrees with common usage of the term, and provides verifiable criteria. This was my thinking when I posted the RfC. --Sammy1339 (talk) 17:48, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Re "male educators are never described this way": see e.g. Andrew M. Gleason (a prominent research mathematician by anyone's standards) whose first paragraph also includes the text "was a leader in reform and innovation in math­e­mat­ics teaching at all levels". But I guess what you mean is "male people known only for mathematics education work and not for mathematics research are not called mathematicians" and trolling through Category:Mathematics educators will find plenty of counterexamples. You could edit them to avoid using that word, I suppose, and then it would become true. Please also not that (for now, unless you edit that as well to make your belief into reality) Category:Mathematics educators is a subcategory of Category:Mathematicians by field. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:02, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) But he's not categorized as a mathematician because of his work on education. He's categorized as a mathematician because he was a mathematician. Andrew_M._Gleason#Mathematics_research.

The most prominent male math education theorists, like Robert Parris Moses and Robert M. Gagné, are not referred to as "mathematicians" - that term is reserved for people with doctoral degrees in math or who have made contributions to math itself. This is not to say we necessarily shouldn't include them, but you are proposing changing the definition of what a mathematician is. --Sammy1339 (talk) 18:13, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: You have a valid concern about the marginalization of women (although a list like this won't do much to rectify it). However, I think a lot of people who would arrive at this page would probably think of "mathematician" as a profession, so perhaps the name of the list should be changed to something like List of women in mathematics (for which Notable Women in Mathematics: A Biographical Dictionary is a precedent). Then we could remove the ambiguity in the name with clear selection criteria in the lead. My first attempt above was not so good - but following your suggestion, we could try

This is a list of women who have made notable contributions to mathematics.

The rest of the lead could emphasize that this includes contributions to mathematics dissemination and education. RockMagnetist(talk) 23:18, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

That would be ok with me. Note that among the researchers we also have some in borderline areas like mathematical physics or statistics or theoretical computer science or philosophy of mathematics rather than pure mathematics, so whatever phrasing we choose should account for that. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:22, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I also think that this would be a good way to go with this article. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 01:48, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this definition, for two reasons. One, it would exclude certain people, like Hypatia, who clearly belong in the list. Two, it will lead to disputes about what contributions are notable, and what contributions are part of mathematics. It's not a verifiable criterion. This list should be a list of female mathematicians. --Sammy1339 (talk) 17:09, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Moreover, per WP:CONLIMITED, we shouldn't have a special rule for this article. The same criteria should apply to all the lists of mathematicians. --Sammy1339 (talk) 17:14, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

@Sammy1339: I don't know why you think this definition would exclude Hypatia, since multiple sources identify her as a mathematician, and notable mathematicians would surely be a subset of people who made notable contributions to mathematics. It is eminently verifiable. As for WP:CONLIMITED, that is the point of renaming the list.

References

I believe that I successfully addressed the concerns of Sammy1339, and there has been no reply in two weeks. Not hearing any other objections, I will boldly make the change. RockMagnetist(talk) 23:34, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Perhaps you could add some text to broaden the definition appropriately? RockMagnetist(talk) 23:41, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Recent edits

I feel there ought to be a list of female mathematicians, and I don't like the idea of applying special criteria to this list that are not applied to lists of other groups of mathematicians. I especially don't want to start "throwing people off the island", to borrow a phrase of User:David Eppstein's, so I restored being a female mathematician as one of the criteria for inclusion. --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:58, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

• @David Eppstein: Regarding your recent reverts, why are we warring about this? I am accepting your insanely broad criteria for inclusion and modestly asking that women who are mathematicians remain in this list, which until a few days ago while I was away was the list of female mathematicians. Is this not a reasonable compromise? --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:02, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I disagree that being a mathematician, without being notable as a mathematician, should be sufficient. That would open the door to being a directory of all female mathematics students ever. In particular, Barbara McMartin does not seem to be notable as a mathematician. She earned a PhD but immediately turned to non-mathematical pursuits. (I also feel that her article should not put being a mathematician in the lead — it is not what she is notable for.) For the same reason, despite having added her earlier myself, I now feel that Loulou von Brochwitz should not be listed here — she is studying mathematics so in that sense can be called a mathematician but has not yet achieved anything notable in mathematics. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:02, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

You should really bring that up at Talk:Lists of mathematicians as the criteria should be applied uniformly. But I think that pointing out mathematicians who attained notability for other things is potentially very useful. This doesn't require us to include students, which I would not have done in the first place. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:09, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Useful for what purpose? And why should I care about someone's credentials rather than their accomplishments? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Sammy1339, I think you went overboard deleting all the citations that do support the first part of the selection criteria. I'm not sure about the second part, so for now I put it in a second sentence. RockMagnetist(talk) 23:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I do wonder whether achievements in mathematics contests should be included. RockMagnetist(talk) 23:27, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: You are referencing a non-policy essay about how to argue in deletion discussions - I don't see how that's relevant here. I mean useful in the way lists are supposed to be useful. By your criteria, many of the entries in this list can be removed. Just in the A's, women mathematicians who have not made "notable contributions to mathematics" arguably include Grace Alele-Williams, Tamara Awerbuch-Friedlander, Winifred Asprey, and Hertha Marks Ayrton. Again I have to reiterate my serious concern about applying special criteria to kick women off the list, which are not applied to men. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:32, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Winifred Asprey should be listed here, if we have a Wikipedia article on her at all, because mathematical works are the main basis of notability in her article. And while Grace Alele-Williams may have being head of a university as the most notable thing in her biography, there are plenty of other achievements listed there that specifically involve mathematics. I don't have a strong opinion about inclusion or exclusion of the other two on your list. And I agree that we should also apply the same reasoning to other lists (in particular that people should not be included in the list of mathematicians if there is nothing mathematical in their basis for notability), but list of mathematicians is mostly bot-edited based on whether someone has a "mathematician" category so changing what we do there would be more difficult. We shouldn't let the artificial difficulty of editing that list force us into a foolish consistency with it here, where manual editing is the norm, and your "but what about the men?" arguments raise a bit of a red flag for me as a classical derailing tactic for discussions about women. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:31, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: The convention in all list articles as far as I'm aware is to include people who meet the verifiable criteria regardless of subjective assessments of the notability of their achievements or the relevance of their categoy-membership to their notability. In the list of Polish mathematicians, one does not expect Polish mathematicians to be omitted because they were not notable as Poles. Why should it be any different if they are notable for something besides mathematics? Should the list of vegetarians only contain people notable for promoting vegetarianism?

I expect listed Polish mathematicians to be notable for doing something mathematical and to be Polish (but not to be notable for doing something Polish). If we have people on that list who are Polish and who have a mathematics PhD but have no notability for anything mathematical (and we probably do; I haven't checked carefully), then I would argue to remove them. Similarly, I expect the people on this list to be notable for something mathematical and to be women (but not necessarily to be notable for feminism or other non-mathematical subjects related to being women). Is that so difficult to understand? As for conventions: one of the things that distinguishes lists from categories is that we can determine here what the inclusion criteria should be, rather than (as for categories) running into a wall of wiki-dogmatism about whether the category is "defining". —David Eppstein (talk) 02:22, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

And please, with the accusations. You were the first one to bring up second generation bias, and the kind that your criteria risk introducing is a much bigger problem than what you earlier expressed concern about. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:03, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@RockMagnetist: I have read those sources and I can't see that they support anything. Maybe you mean they support the fact that certain individuals in the list are notable mathematicians? In that case the citations belong next to the names in the list, not at the top of the page. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:34, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

They do two things: they support notability of this list by providing sources that discuss it as a list; and they provide sources that can be used to verify that the names in those sources meet the selection criteria. RockMagnetist(talk) 23:39, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I think we have a fairly wide choice of what selection criteria to set. So long as the list is compiled according to the criteria given at the start of the page, it doesn't matter whether those criteria are the same or different from those of other lists. My personal preference is to include women who are either (1) notable for their mathematical contributions, or (2) mathematicians by profession who are notable for something else (with a much higher notability requirement). I would not include as "mathematician by profession" someone who trained as a mathematician but took a career elsewhere soon after they graduated. McKay (talk) 07:11, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

ALL female mathematicians?

How come we don't have an article called list of people in mathematics, or list of men in mathematics? David Eppstein seems hell-bent on listing every single female mathematician on the planet. 203.45.134.227 (talk) 13:15, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Are you talking about my article creations, or my additions of articles to this list? I think this list should include all women deemed sufficiently notable to have an article on Wikipedia, so I have added a line whenever someone creates an article about a mathematician; that does not mean I agree that all of those mathematicians are all notable or should have articles, but I don't think I should impose my personal opinions on significance as a criterion for being listed here. As for the articles I have created myself: I only create articles on mathematicians when I am convinced that the subject passes the criteria listed in WP:PROF, such as being a fellow of a major academic society, having a distinguished professor title, having multiple very highly cited publications, etc. Usually for the articles I create, the subject passes multiple criteria, but only one is needed. As for your "what about the men" whining: we do have lists of mathematicians (see in particular the alphabetical listing of all mathematicians linked in the infobox at the top right of that link). But there is no justification for pulling men out as a separate class of mathematicians, just as there is no justification for making a separate list of mathematicians who happen to be human: for too long, being male in mathematics was the default, and women were a rare exceptioin. That is less true now but women are still a significant minority in mathematics, enough so that there are major organizations devoted to improving that situation (AWM, EWM, etc), events and publications about publicizing the role of women in mathematics, etc. That is to say, "women in mathematics" is a notable topic, because many people have noted it; "men in mathematics" (Eric Temple Bell notwithstanding) is not. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Citation needed, David Eppstein. I actually wrote something like that in the article and it got reverted! 203.45.134.227 (talk) 05:59, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

"there is no justification for pulling men out as a separate class of mathematicians, just as there is no justification for making a separate list of mathematicians who happen to be human"

Oh, so we should create list of animals in mathematics, then? 203.45.134.227 (talk) 06:03, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Do not insert your own excreta into my comments again or you risk being blocked. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:36, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Spoken like a feminist. Do you have any source for YOUR excreta? The sources in the article are not reliable; this article should be deleted. 49.199.8.78 (talk) 07:11, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm calling your block bluff, by the way. 49.199.8.78 (talk) 07:27, 16 October 2015 (UTC)