The article was clearly not designed to be read by anyone except a handful of sociologists, but I don’t think that that is a good thing at all. See here for more on this: http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/9383/

As a doctor, I am very uncomfortable with the idea that an academic article is “not meant” for the general public. The general public has every right to read and critique articles. That you need a qualification or a job as a sociologist to even critique an article isn’t just elitism, it’s dangerous. I could understand if all you meant was that most non-sociologists won’t understand the text, however it seems to me that what you mean is that non-sociologists shouldn’t be allowed to read or critique the text.

Outsider views are responsible for some of the great innovations in science and thinking. One only has to think of Albert Einstein as the obvious example.

JP

I understand why you would be upset about my anonymity, however it is unfortunately something that I am required to keep in order to have a blog like this. I am hoping that my circumstances will change one day and that will no longer be necessary, however I will have to maintain it for now.

I do feel that your article was paternalistic. I have no doubt that Hirsi Ali’s views create some displeasure amongst immigrants in the Netherlands, however she is speaking from a position of much credibility as a person who has directly suffered from some horrible and intensely oppressive aspects of the culture in which she was raised.

You do not have to disagree with her, however your qualified statement that the texts in ‘supposedly legitimize violence against women’ does not do justice for the women, like Hirsi Ali, who have suffered or continue to suffer violence at the hands of those who preach these verses.

Throughout your article, you did not acknowledge these kinds of issues and did not consider whether the immigrants you interviewed were responsible in some way for their own situation. I use the word ‘paternalistic’ because this perspective infantilises the immigrants, they become passive objects of Dutch influence with no agency or autonomy.

I will concede that I am not a trained sociologist, however I am a trained statistician and because of that I can confidently say that your research IS an experiment — a natural experiment to be exact. You gathered data and analysed it using dependent, independent and control variables, that is an experimental design.

You are correct in stating that ‘[o]ne uses control variables because one assumes that these factor DO influence career advancement,’ however in your article you identified that other factors also influence career development as employees are now promoted using ‘a variety of criteria and competence profiles’.

Other than education, age and tenure, you only controlled for language proficiency. I would hazard a guess that the ‘criteria and competence profiles’ you mentioned would include many other variables as factors in promotion and you do not seem to have considered or controlled for these.

Assessing whether a decision was discriminatory is very difficult, however it is essential to look for the actual causal mechanisms in the decision and whether and how it may be influenced by prejudice. Reading your paper, I felt that you had omitted a lot of crucial information and jumped to the ‘easy’ conclusion of discrimination.

Who are you? It is a bit unbrave not to sign a text with one’s name I would say. Moreover, it is a bit indecent not to write the name of the author of the text you comment on in a correct way. As I happen to be the author of the text you refer to, just a few comments.

First, this is a text in an academic journal meant for academics, not for people like you who are not trained to read such a text. Many comments on my text simply show that you do not understand what the text says simply because you are not trained to do so. E.g you suggest I should say that the text is racial discrimination in employment. Well, that is simply not where the text is about, you apparently do not understand what the term racioethnic refers to so, please abstain from comments on issues about which you lack sufficient knowledge.

E.g. suggesting that I would have written that education, age and tenure are no longer the factors that determine career advancement is simply very silly. One uses control variables because one assumes that these factor DO influence career advancement, what they actually turned out to do. Just silly.

E.g. my research is NOT an experiment, as you claim.

Numerous other examples of silly mistakes in your comments.

Second, you read a lot of meanings in the text that are simply not there. Most of your comments distort the meanings of my text since they simply are not there in any way. E.g. suggesting that I would have applauded the murder on Pim Fortuyn is simply a grotest misreading of my text. What you suggest is simply not there.

E.g. accusing me of paternalism? Many of the female Islamic respondents complained about the fact that Hirsi Ali treats them in an unexcusable maternalist way.

Numerous other examples of malicious comments.

Third, if you want to insult someone, as you so, it may be more effective to use terms that have a meaning. E.g. you accuse me of ‘third-worldism/moral-relativism/borderline endorsement of assassination as a method for combatting anti-Islamist rhetoric.’ I have not got a clue what that would mean. No idea. By the way, what is an asshole? I am not a native English speaker and have been educated in a decent way, so I do not know such words.

Fourth, you have not spoken to any of our numerous respondents and are not able to understand the basics of the concepts we use and the methods we applied. So you disqualify yourself as reader of my text.

Finally, I am very sorry I have wasted an hour of your time reading my text. But you can avoid that in the future by not trying to comment on text you are not qualified for. This text was simply not meant for you.

Kind regards,

Hans Siebers