On merit and equity in math

Abstract

In recent paper "Quantifying Inequities and Documenting Elitism in PhD-granting Mathematical Sciences Departments in the United States" (arXiv:2308.13750) by a group of accomplished and/or aspiring mathematicians, the authors use data to challenge ``the idea that the mathematical sciences in the United States is a meritocracy''. We show that, regardless of the validity of the challenged idea, the arguments in the paper are invalid. Namely, among other flaws, they rely on a logical trick of asserting the validity of the conclusion derived from an assumption which the authors neglect to test (and which actually contradicts their own data).