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This is a smart insight, although in fairness the article suggests, in its female founder example, that there was discrimination against women -- that given me
by jonahx 11y ago
This is a smart insight, although in fairness the article suggests, in its female founder example, that there was discrimination against women -- that given men and women of equal ability, men were more likely to be chosen.
Condemning that inequality is different from affirming that selection should be altered to produce the outcomes people view as fair. One is saying, "Don't discriminate against Xs." The other is saying, "Not only can't you discriminate against them, you need to ensure that Xs have outcome Y. That is, you may be required to discriminate in their favor."
The latter is a value, and your point about mathematics being irrelevant stands. But the former is a mathematical claim, and pg was making a mathematical claim, so the mathematical argument you replied to is relevant.
- Natsu 11y agoI think the grandparent example is pointing out that it will be hard to use this for sexism claims precisely because studies have shown that the variance in ability in male and female populations is, in fact, different. The studies I'm aware of show more men at both extremes of the bell curve. So more men at the very top and bottom in IQ measurements[1]. There's a genetic basis for this, as well: women have two copies of each chromosome, whereas men have X and Y, so there's no second copy to take over in men, leading to more extreme outcomes, whether good or bad. Now of course we ought to treat every group of people fairly, but we do need to examine our priors when doing so, especially when proposing ways to detect and punish people who may be thinking bad things, consciously or otherwise. [1] We may not know just what 'IQ' is, but we do know that tests of mental ability all correlate with each other, suggesting an underlying factor. This, in turn, can be correlated with many other things, like success (or lack thereof).