Women in Dark Matter

I'd like to compare and contrast two articles:
Women Atop Their Fields Dissect the Scientific Life, NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/science/07women.html

Possible Sighting of Dark Matter Fires Up Search and Tempers, Science (requires subscription)
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1144.full

The Times article talk with a few female scientists, one of whom is Elena Aprile, about being a woman in science. The Science article talks about the personality-laden conflicts in the field of dark matter. One of the researchers involved is Elena Aprile, and another is Rita Bernabei.

Dark matter has been a contentious field for some time. Many of the professors in charge of the experiments have "large" personalities and some of the results are contentious. I've seen many dark matter talks given and thought some of the attitudes and phrases bordered on being unprofessional. But when one researcher calls the results of another experiment "pure, weapons-grade balonium" at a large physics conference, it sets a new bar for unprofessional behavior. Seriously, Prof. Juan Collar actually had this on a slide about XENON's results at the APS April meeting. I spoke with some researchers at the conference who aren't connected to the dark matter community and they were amazed. I wasn't as surprised.

But now there is a Science article on how out of control it has gotten, specifically on Juan Collar. He heads the CoGeNT experiment, which recently has reported data that could be considered dark matter. Bernabei heads DAMA and has had to defend their results for years. Aprile heads XENON, an experiment which claims to prove DAMA wrong. There are plenty of other big personalities, but they are the "big three". In the Science article Aprile is quoted as saying "Juan is losing his mind,”. Another player in the dark matter community is Blas Cabrera, who heads CDMS. He is more soft-spoken and his quote was that Collar's “approach has been like a ton of bricks that doesn't encourage proper scientific discourse.” This is one of the kinder quotes in the article...

Fritz Zwicky can be credited with starting the dark matter field. He was the first to propose dark matter, and his idea was thoroughly rejected. So he became the first dark matter physicist to be a huge jerk. While it is now well-accepted as an idea, there is contention as to whether or not it has been detected. Cabrera's CDMS experiment has been around for a while (and I worked on it briefly, so I am a bit partial) and has not seen evidence of dark matter. These other experiments use different technology, in some cases, less understood technology. But it is a big competition to find dark matter... and get funding.

Here is a snippet from the NYTimes article I found most interesting:

DR. APRILE: I kind of disagree, honestly, at least in my field, in my life. You have to be very tough, and this is a very hard life and you are always exposed. You have to be extremely strong. You have to face the competition. If one of my daughters were really dying for being a scientist, there would be no question I would support them. But if I have to encourage them, to push them in that direction, there is no way.

DR. HIRSCH: I think it is important to look at this from the point of view of the field of science. It is very important that diversity be represented in the field of science. And so from the point of view of the science — not our daughters — then I think it is necessary to have women and a woman’s point of view. Her ability to collaborate, her ability to think differently, is important for the trajectory of the field. But I really agree with you, Elena. You have to be tough. You have to be made of steel.

DR. APRILE: Titanium is better.

While I can't say for sure what experiments have good results, I can say it looks like Prof. Aprile is made of titanium. And if Collar can't tell the difference between titanium and 'bolonium', how can we trust him to tell the difference between dark matter and background?