NASA's Error In Its Science Project "Voting" Decision Was Inexcusable

The three African-American teens (top) who designed and presented a science project for a NASA contest have been compared to the scientists who used their math ability to get John Glenn into orbit and portrayed in the film 'Hidden Figures'
Baca Juga
However, instead of being celebrated for being the only all-black team to make the finals, the trio were bombarded with racist comments by anonymous online trolls on the website 4chan, according to The Washington Post.
I have referenced the 4chan knuckle draggers and wannabe Nazis before, especially in terms of their helping to spread the idiotic conspiracy theory that the Parkland FL shooting survivors were "trained actors" - as they took their anti -assault rifle message public. I noted that clearly because these nitwit trolls were unable to be so articulate at the students' age - they refused to believe David Hogg, Cameron Kasky et al were doing it on their own.
The error appeared to have been expeditiously recognized given the official statement from NASA:
“On Sunday, April 29, hackers attempted to change the vote totals in the NASA OPSPARC Challenge, so managers of the challenge decided to end public voting to protect the integrity of the results. The challenge team has an accurate record of the voting results prior to the attempted disruption.”
Later adding:"To attack a particular student team based on their race and encouraged others to disrupt the contest and manipulate the vote, and the attempt to manipulate the vote occurred shortly after those posts,"
This referenced the proto Nazi mutts at 4chan trying to hack and manipulate the vote because they believed the girls didn't merit being finalists. See e.g.
https://www.hackread.com/4chan-hackers-attack-voting-results-of-nasa-student-challenge/
Fortunately, NASA has the voting results before the attempted manipulations by the white nationalists at 4chan occurred. However, once again, voting should never have been resorted to for the assessment of project quality.. (In like manner, the status of Pluto should never have been voted on in an IAU meeting).
Science project quality needs to be judged on its scientific merits not on a public vote when most of the public may only have impressions and subjective feelings to go by, not any actual scientific insights or knowledge.
Hopefully, other agencies or sponsors of student science projects will not repeat this daft mistake.
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