27 ms·

Not much new here. This article is essentially just re-affirming all the scientific statements that were already made in the original memo, backed by links to s

Not much new here. This article is essentially just re-affirming all the scientific statements that were already made in the original memo, backed by links to scientific studies. Only difference being that the author of this article has a PhD in sexual neuroscience (so people might have a harder time accusing her of not knowing what she's talking about) and is female (so some people might have a harder time of accusing her of sexism).

blusterXY 9y ago
What astonishes me is that Google's VP of Diversity knows so little about the underlying science of her vocation that she confused statements of clinical fact (with the science even referenced in footnotes!) with personal attacks on women.
- occultist_throw 9y ago
  > gender studies If I've learned anything, a "degree" in gender studies means one thing. It means that you are not a "Cis-gendered hetereosexual White Male". Gender studies is a code-word for Women Studies. It's a bone to throw, to get "VP of Diversity and Hugbox" - and those groups are the ones to twist, lie, and deform anything you said because you're a threat. As long as you toe the line, you're usually relatively safe. If you speak out about the elephant, you are not to be discussed or engaged. You're to be blackballed, fired, and worse if they could. And what those programs teach - they teach professional victimhood, professional weakness, and "Multiculturalism" in the sense of that you should hate Western Heteresexual White culture.
- sp332 9y ago
  It was an attack on women, even if it used "science" as corroborating points.
  - Jabanga 9y ago
    This is just dogma. Making a scientifically supported argument against a position of postmodernists and feminists doesn't equal an "attack on women". The lack of intellect and integrity displayed by the attacks on the fired Google employee is really disturbing.
    - sp332 9y ago
      Nope. But the original memo defends discrimination against women and makes recommendations for future discrimination. Implementing these suggestions would be literally illegal for Google (subject to EEOC), and in fact Google is already in a lawsuit defending their alleged discrimination.
      - Jabanga 9y ago
        It does not defend discrimination against women. That's absurd. Quote me a single section that "defends discrimination against women". Incredibly harmful false accusations like this seem to be par for the course anytime someone goes up against postmodernist/feminist dogma.
      - mistermann 9y ago
        > the original memo defends discrimination against women Can you back up this claim with a citation from the document? If not, can you explain your thought (feeling) process?
        Delmania 9y ago
        > Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things > Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain roles and Google can be and we shouldn’t deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this).
        Jabanga 9y ago
        Do you believe these comments defend discrimination against women? I'm trying to understand how one could see it that way. I see both of these statements as unquestionably true, and the sexism accusation as stifling the type of free expression needed for rational dialogue. If facts are sexist, then the definition of sexism being used is wrong.
        9y ago
- daughart 9y ago
  The fact that you equate a few studies with "clinical fact" shows you do not understand how science works. http://retractionwatch.com http://retractionwatch.com
  - blusterXY 9y ago
    The Big-5 aka OCEAN model (openness / conscientiousness / extroversion / agreeability / neuroticism) constitutes the most scientifically accepted framework for measuring personality. It is confirmed by decades of work and massive amounts of large-n survey research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits One of the major giveaways that the Diversity VP at Google is incompetent came when she criticized the author for attacking women simply because he used the terms "conscientiousness" and "agreeability" and "neuroticism". You are not doing much better by insinuating that science can only be correct when it supports your ideological position.
    - daughart 9y ago
      I insinuated no such thing. Bluster is an appropriate username for you.
52-6F-62 9y ago
I personally never called it out for sexism. I called it out for regressive-thinking as a solution based on plain fact. I can only be brief right now, but it's starting to get to me how so many people in an innovative sphere seem to have such a hard time with this. To me, it seems like it shouldn't be a second thought. If the main argument is that women do not [by nature of our scientific understanding] have minds tuned to engineering prowess to the extent that men do for whatever cause, then just how does that itself prescribe that we should stop pushing for an expansion there? Humans never evolved to fly, yet we do it all the time. By the same logic, if we weren't evolved to do it, we should probably just put our planes away because it's bad for us. Same with communicating long distances and sharing knowledge on a planet-wide scale. <sarcasm> I mean, they've caused problems themselves after all. I think we should put all these silly, limit-pushing ideas and practices aside and just go back to smashing rocks together. The ground has rocks. We all have two hands. It can work for us.</sarcasm> TL;DR Why is a fact being accepted as sound basis for a totally disparate theory on why we should stop trying to exceed our limits? This guys post wasn't science. He used science to reason out a way to revert to a state of community where he stands to gain more. There was another theory like that, I can recall. I think it started with an 'e'. edit: Wanted to add, a PhD of neurosexuality is probably one of the last people I would consult on philosophy, humanism or any kind of larger social issue. It's not exactly her scope. It does help to have an expert on the subject chime in on the science, though. It will help at least dispose of that less useful side of the discussion.
- dionidium 9y ago
  "If the main argument is that women do not [by nature of our scientific understanding] have minds tuned to engineering prowess to the extent that men do for whatever cause" The main argument isn't about prowess; it's about preference.
  - sp332 9y ago
    But if other countries have more equal representation in tech, India and Malaysia for example, then doesn't the biological argument fall apart? The difference isn't between men and women but between America and other countries.
monochromatic 9y ago
> backed by links > PhD in sexual neuroscience > female There's a LOT that's new here, relative to Damore's memo.
- thrden 9y ago
  the first was cited as well, though news sources removed the citations.
  - monochromatic 9y ago
    That's really interesting. Do you have a link to the un-molested version?
    - peoplewindow 9y ago
      https://diversitymemo.com/ https://diversitymemo.com/
    - mmstan 9y ago
      Here you go: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
- mistermann 9y ago
  Don't forget: POC. Sadly, these things carry as much if not more persuasive capability than words and ideas. The West's days are numbered I'm afraid.
- titanix2 9y ago
  Credit given to a quote shouldn't be based on the sex of the speaker. To some extend this is an application of the "your point is invalid" meme: you're a man so your point is invalid. This way of thinking is very damaging to the public debate.
  - notyourloops 9y ago
foolrush 9y ago
For the record, the "facts" cited in her post are indeed questionable. A decent sociological analysis has been making the rounds, including https://ifstudies.org/blog/five-facts-about-women-and-men-in-tech https://ifstudies.org/blog/five-facts-about-women-and-men-in... and https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-the-google-engineers-manifesto-missed-about-discrimination-at-work https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-the-google-engineers-manifes... among others, including a presenter at Google https://twitter.com/histoftech/status/894418661741649920 https://twitter.com/histoftech/status/894418661741649920 Even a brief analysis of sociology would reveal a deeply seated counter argument to much of the "fact" present in the screed and the OP link.
- brighteyes 9y ago
  There are reasonable arguments on both sides, which rational people can debate. That's the bigger point here. Not that there is a slam dunk argument on the side of biology or society, but that we don't know where the exact truth lies, and we need to be open to discussion about it in order to find out. As scientists have been saying all along, both biological and societal factors matter. What I hope we can all agree is unreasonable is to fire someone for just trying to discuss this.
  - foolrush 9y ago
    Would phrenology be acceptable to "debate"? Or race based "debates"? It is remarkable how the need for debate is disproportionately forwarded from the side with power.
    - brighteyes 9y ago
      We are talking here about reasonable scientific claims believed by large parts of the population and by scientists. You can disagree with them, but you also need to live in a society with them. We need to find a way to work together, even as we disagree on things. It's not like phrenology or Nazis which are tiny minorities we can just cast out and ignore. And I'm not sure I agree with you on which side has power here. Look who got fired.
  - 9y ago
kenjackson 9y ago
The issue with the original article was two-fold: 1. It used strawman arguments. Notably that the world is looking for a 50/50 split in gender ratios. Most reasonable people believe that even in ideal equilibrium state that this is not the expected outcome (although I'm sure there exist some people that push for 50/50 or greater). But that the current ratio is not the ideal equilibrium state. The author of the paper seems to point out that 50/50 isn't likely the expected ratio -- and then jumps to trying to dismantle affirmative action. 2. He selectively uses research and data from research. For example the impact of stereotypes and individuating. But the research shows that while individuating is effective when it shows clear discrepancy, it isn't effective when there is any ambiguity. That is Maryam Mirzakhani will likely make someone who thinks women aren't good at math think, "But yes, she's actually quite good." But when it comes to more nuanced decisions and decision with a lot less data (which is more commonplace in the workplace), individuating isn't so effective. Determining who should be promoted to lead or VP from a group of pretty strong candidates, will often have the stereotype bias still play a role (and in fairness, depending on exactly the role -- it can benefit females too). This is meant to be an example of research where in the memo one part of the story is told, but not the other. Based on my limited investigation, I don't trust him being impartial in presenting these facts. In much the same way that climate change deniers often point to facts too -- its what they don't point to that is worrisome. Lastly, there is a difference between speaking truth and how you speak truth. This seems obvious to most people outside of engineering. Putting "Catherine has big boobs and I'd have sex with her, if she consented" as part of your sig may be completely factually she true. In fact, it may be obvious to everyone who reads it, but there is a time and a place. If I were a female, I'd have a hard time reporting to Mr. Damore. If I didn't get a promotion, I don't think it would be out of line, to consider what he wrote in the memo. If Mr. Damore ignores my suggestion in a design review, I'd have to again strongly consider if he did so because of my gender. If he rejects all of his women interview candidates -- is that a problem or not? The context of what he wrote, even if done in good faith, creates a more difficult working relationship. My hope is that if Mr. Damore wrote that in good faith, he will take this feedback and make things better for everyone, male and female. He certainly won't have trouble getting job offers (if he wrote it in good faith or not -- there are enough people in tech who don't like women in the industry) -- and if his end goal was to create the environment for the discussion, then he's done that too.
deepnotderp 9y ago
>Only difference being that the author of this article has a PhD in sexual neuroscience Original evil evil author had a PhD/MS in Biology from Harvard
- daughart 9y ago
  He studied mathematical biology. A PhD/MS should never indicate expertise outside of the field of study.
  - deepnotderp 9y ago
    Then it's a good thing that he cited sources (that got removed by Gizmodo, Motherboard, etc.)
    - daughart 9y ago
      As said elsewhere in this thread: Anyone who wants to use "science" in this way needs to read "The Golem" by prominent sociologists of science Collins and Pinch. It's a short, enjoyable read. One of the things you'll learn is that science can only ask the questions humans want to ask, and science often says exactly what people want it to say. https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Should-About-Science-Classics/dp/1107604656; https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Should-About-Science-Classics/d... online link: http://cstpr.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/collins_the_golem.pdf http://cstpr.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/collins_the_gol...
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  He lied about having a PhD and his MS is presumably in "Systems Biology" (same as his claimed PhD), ie "the computational study of biological systems".
Beltiras 9y ago
Women used to be more prevalent in STEM fields. In the 80's there were actually more female programmers than males. Something changed in the mid 80's and the culprit might have been gender stereotypes in advertising. If the reason for less women in STEM is biological, they would never have outpaced males at any timepoint.
- kerbalspacepro 9y ago
  It may also have been the type of computing that was going on. Pre-80s computing involved mainframes, data entry... secretarial tasks. Post-80s computing involved building businesses, getting heavily involved in the science, and generally hiding out in a dark room programming alone for weeks at a time. What evidence is there for advertisement stereotyping being the causal factor? Wasn't advertisement stereotyping just as powerful in non-STEM fields like law? medicine? journalism? Why did they break the gender curse whereas STEM did not?
  - kamaal 9y ago
    This reminds me of government R&D institutes in India. Where every one gets the title of a 'Scientist'. So there are levels like 'Scientist-1', 'Scientist-2', ... In reality most of these levels have only clerical work to do. Sometimes things like writing down on a register that you issued somebody a Screw gauge. So basically book keeping, secretarial work, data entry etc etc. But yeah, on the ground every gets to be called a 'Scientist'.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    > Pre-80s computing involved mainframes, data entry... secretarial tasks. ...sending rockets to the moon...
- tzs 9y ago
  You are assuming that the change in the 80s was something that made programming less attractive to women. But that's not the only change that could explain what happened. It could be that one or more other fields changed to become more attractive to women. Until people stop focusing on where there women aren't, and instead focus on where the women are, we aren't going to figure out what the problem is in programming, or even figure out if there actually is a problem with programming. There's a graph here [1] showing percent of bachelor's degrees going to women in several different fields over time, from 1970 through 2010. The decline in women getting CS degrees starting in mid '80s really stands out. However what also stands out is that nothing else seems to have gotten a noticeable bump around the same time, so assuming that those women who are missing from CS did not leave college entirely, where are they? It's possible that there is a bump but we just can't see it. There were only about 40000 BS CS degrees granted per year in the middle '80s. Some other fields beat that by a large factor, and so it is possible the missing CS women could have been absorbed into a few of those big majors where the bumps might be small enough to be lost in the noise. Another interesting thing is that if you look just at CS, the total number of CS BS degrees was growing through 1985, then started falling [2]. If you look at just men, and just women, the same thing happened for each. For both, from 1970 to 1985 they were on an accelerating growth curve (almost exponential), and then for both it turned around and fell quickly (also almost exponentially) then leveled off. During that growth phase the women's growth curve was accelerating more than the men's curve. During the decline phase, the women's decline was faster, too. [1] http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor... [2] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2474991/it-careers/women-computer-science-grads--the-bump-before-the-decline.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2474991/it-careers/wome...
bryanlarsen 9y ago
The problem with scientific studies is that they're great at describing a population, but generally have very little predictive power at the individual level. For example, one of the studies that showed boys were better than girls at math showed that if you chose a random boy and a random girl, there was a 55% chance that the boy was better at math. Not very much different from flipping a coin at an individual level, but quite significant in a population.
- rexicus 9y ago
  Read the memo, James made this distinction numerous times.
zzalpha 9y ago
I'm just gonna copy another comment I made elsewhere: The problem is that the gender differences cited cannot, in aggregate, explain the 70/30 bias toward men in the industry. There's a real similarity to the global warming debate, here. There are many factors that affect global mean temperature. For example, over the very long term, the sun will get brighter. But that can only account for an astonishingly tiny fraction of the warming observed on the planet. Someone who wishes to debate honestly would admit that, while there are many factors that affect global mean temperature, the rise on CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is significant, and has a demonstrable effect on temperature, making it by far the strongest influencer. Someone who wishes to debate dishonestly will use these other explanations as a method to muddy the debate and try and turn attention toward lesser factors that cannot explain the whole effect. Now, if you look at this current "debate", yes, there are undoubtedly biological gender differences that can explain some male/female bias in engineering (among many other disciplines). But no serious psychologist or sociologist would claim that those differences can account for the dramatic real world bias in the industry. It simply doesn't follow. So to claim those gender differences lie at the root of bias in the industry is a distraction. At best it's a gross misunderstanding of the science and statistics. At worst, it's a deliberately dishonest attempt to muddy the waters and confuse the debate. Personally, my bet is it's more the former than the latter.
- rwcarlsen 9y ago
  I don't think he has a gross misunderstanding of the science. If you look at the example cartoon distributions he draws for gender differences - there is huge overlap. From my reading, he is advocating for non-discriminatory methods of trying to fix that gap. He's basically saying we shouldn't try to fix discrimination (that we think is bad) with discrimination (that we excuse as good).
  - zzalpha 9y ago
    He acknowledges that in practice the gender differences are real, but small. Then uses the existence of those small differences to justify fundamentally changing their hiring policies. The latter does not follow from the former. Again, as with the global warming debate, it makes a lot more sense to tackle the larger influencers first, before addressing these smaller factors.
rbehrends 9y ago
> Not much new here. This article is essentially just re-affirming all the scientific statements that were already made in the original memo, backed by links to scientific studies. It's not the biological claims, it's the conclusions he draws from it. Here's the thing. Let's stipulate that all the biological (and esp. neuroscience-related) claims are 100% true. What follows? Let's look at nursing. Clearly, it should be a male-dominated profession, right? The work-life balance (all the night shifts) is horrible and the stress is high (lives in the balance and all that). This is a profession that women should not want, right? Same for accounting. Few professions are less about people and more about things. No room for "gregariousness". Again, a man's job. In contrast, management positions (at least mid-level leadership positions) should be a great fit for women. All about interacting with people and that "gregariousness". Obviously, this is not how the real world works. My point is that we're dealing with wishy-washy criteria here that you can use to argue whichever way your personal biases lie. They are inherently unfalsifiable and hence, unscientific. It's like the story about the blind men and the elephant [1], drawing bold macrosociological conclusions from fairly raw biological and psychological data. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
- david38 9y ago
  Very little of nursing is like that. Most nursing doesn't have lives in the balance most days. It does require being somewhat social with patients though. You are forgetting one huge thing. Lots of women doing something make it automatically attractive to women just because it'll be common in their circles.
  - rbehrends 9y ago
    > Very little of nursing is like that. You can make the same argument about IT. My point is not that what I'm saying is true, but that (like the macrosociological claims in the paper) it sounds plausible, yet is unfalsifiable and hence, unscientific. > You are forgetting one huge thing. Lots of women doing something make it automatically attractive to women just because it'll be common in their circles. I am not forgetting anything. My argument was in essence a reductio ad absurdum. If you want to advance a social argument why women are over- or underrepresented in certain professions and why Damore is therefore wrong, that would be an entirely separate argument. You're welcome to make it on your own, but I don't think the memo is worth that much of a time investment myself.
dapreja 9y ago
This horse is going to get beaten to death like the MNIST dataset with AI tutorials.

blusterXY 9y ago

What astonishes me is that Google's VP of Diversity knows so little about the underlying science of her vocation that she confused statements of clinical fact (with the science even referenced in footnotes!) with personal attacks on women.

occultist_throw 9y ago
> gender studies If I've learned anything, a "degree" in gender studies means one thing. It means that you are not a "Cis-gendered hetereosexual White Male". Gender studies is a code-word for Women Studies. It's a bone to throw, to get "VP of Diversity and Hugbox" - and those groups are the ones to twist, lie, and deform anything you said because you're a threat. As long as you toe the line, you're usually relatively safe. If you speak out about the elephant, you are not to be discussed or engaged. You're to be blackballed, fired, and worse if they could. And what those programs teach - they teach professional victimhood, professional weakness, and "Multiculturalism" in the sense of that you should hate Western Heteresexual White culture.
sp332 9y ago
It was an attack on women, even if it used "science" as corroborating points.
- Jabanga 9y ago
  This is just dogma. Making a scientifically supported argument against a position of postmodernists and feminists doesn't equal an "attack on women". The lack of intellect and integrity displayed by the attacks on the fired Google employee is really disturbing.
  - sp332 9y ago
    Nope. But the original memo defends discrimination against women and makes recommendations for future discrimination. Implementing these suggestions would be literally illegal for Google (subject to EEOC), and in fact Google is already in a lawsuit defending their alleged discrimination.
    - Jabanga 9y ago
      It does not defend discrimination against women. That's absurd. Quote me a single section that "defends discrimination against women". Incredibly harmful false accusations like this seem to be par for the course anytime someone goes up against postmodernist/feminist dogma.
    - mistermann 9y ago
      > the original memo defends discrimination against women Can you back up this claim with a citation from the document? If not, can you explain your thought (feeling) process?
      - Delmania 9y ago
        > Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things > Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain roles and Google can be and we shouldn’t deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this).
        Jabanga 9y ago
        Do you believe these comments defend discrimination against women? I'm trying to understand how one could see it that way. I see both of these statements as unquestionably true, and the sexism accusation as stifling the type of free expression needed for rational dialogue. If facts are sexist, then the definition of sexism being used is wrong.
        9y ago
daughart 9y ago
The fact that you equate a few studies with "clinical fact" shows you do not understand how science works. http://retractionwatch.com http://retractionwatch.com
- blusterXY 9y ago
  The Big-5 aka OCEAN model (openness / conscientiousness / extroversion / agreeability / neuroticism) constitutes the most scientifically accepted framework for measuring personality. It is confirmed by decades of work and massive amounts of large-n survey research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits One of the major giveaways that the Diversity VP at Google is incompetent came when she criticized the author for attacking women simply because he used the terms "conscientiousness" and "agreeability" and "neuroticism". You are not doing much better by insinuating that science can only be correct when it supports your ideological position.
  - daughart 9y ago
    I insinuated no such thing. Bluster is an appropriate username for you.

52-6F-62 9y ago

I personally never called it out for sexism. I called it out for regressive-thinking as a solution based on plain fact. I can only be brief right now, but it's starting to get to me how so many people in an innovative sphere seem to have such a hard time with this. To me, it seems like it shouldn't be a second thought. If the main argument is that women do not [by nature of our scientific understanding] have minds tuned to engineering prowess to the extent that men do for whatever cause, then just how does that itself prescribe that we should stop pushing for an expansion there? Humans never evolved to fly, yet we do it all the time. By the same logic, if we weren't evolved to do it, we should probably just put our planes away because it's bad for us. Same with communicating long distances and sharing knowledge on a planet-wide scale. <sarcasm> I mean, they've caused problems themselves after all. I think we should put all these silly, limit-pushing ideas and practices aside and just go back to smashing rocks together. The ground has rocks. We all have two hands. It can work for us.</sarcasm> TL;DR Why is a fact being accepted as sound basis for a totally disparate theory on why we should stop trying to exceed our limits? This guys post wasn't science. He used science to reason out a way to revert to a state of community where he stands to gain more. There was another theory like that, I can recall. I think it started with an 'e'. edit: Wanted to add, a PhD of neurosexuality is probably one of the last people I would consult on philosophy, humanism or any kind of larger social issue. It's not exactly her scope. It does help to have an expert on the subject chime in on the science, though. It will help at least dispose of that less useful side of the discussion.

dionidium 9y ago
"If the main argument is that women do not [by nature of our scientific understanding] have minds tuned to engineering prowess to the extent that men do for whatever cause" The main argument isn't about prowess; it's about preference.
- sp332 9y ago
  But if other countries have more equal representation in tech, India and Malaysia for example, then doesn't the biological argument fall apart? The difference isn't between men and women but between America and other countries.

monochromatic 9y ago

> backed by links > PhD in sexual neuroscience > female There's a LOT that's new here, relative to Damore's memo.

thrden 9y ago
the first was cited as well, though news sources removed the citations.
- monochromatic 9y ago
  That's really interesting. Do you have a link to the un-molested version?
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    https://diversitymemo.com/ https://diversitymemo.com/
  - mmstan 9y ago
    Here you go: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
mistermann 9y ago
Don't forget: POC. Sadly, these things carry as much if not more persuasive capability than words and ideas. The West's days are numbered I'm afraid.
titanix2 9y ago
Credit given to a quote shouldn't be based on the sex of the speaker. To some extend this is an application of the "your point is invalid" meme: you're a man so your point is invalid. This way of thinking is very damaging to the public debate.
- notyourloops 9y ago

foolrush 9y ago

For the record, the "facts" cited in her post are indeed questionable. A decent sociological analysis has been making the rounds, including https://ifstudies.org/blog/five-facts-about-women-and-men-in-tech https://ifstudies.org/blog/five-facts-about-women-and-men-in... and https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-the-google-engineers-manifesto-missed-about-discrimination-at-work https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-the-google-engineers-manifes... among others, including a presenter at Google https://twitter.com/histoftech/status/894418661741649920 https://twitter.com/histoftech/status/894418661741649920 Even a brief analysis of sociology would reveal a deeply seated counter argument to much of the "fact" present in the screed and the OP link.

brighteyes 9y ago
There are reasonable arguments on both sides, which rational people can debate. That's the bigger point here. Not that there is a slam dunk argument on the side of biology or society, but that we don't know where the exact truth lies, and we need to be open to discussion about it in order to find out. As scientists have been saying all along, both biological and societal factors matter. What I hope we can all agree is unreasonable is to fire someone for just trying to discuss this.
- foolrush 9y ago
  Would phrenology be acceptable to "debate"? Or race based "debates"? It is remarkable how the need for debate is disproportionately forwarded from the side with power.
  - brighteyes 9y ago
    We are talking here about reasonable scientific claims believed by large parts of the population and by scientists. You can disagree with them, but you also need to live in a society with them. We need to find a way to work together, even as we disagree on things. It's not like phrenology or Nazis which are tiny minorities we can just cast out and ignore. And I'm not sure I agree with you on which side has power here. Look who got fired.
- 9y ago

kenjackson 9y ago

The issue with the original article was two-fold: 1. It used strawman arguments. Notably that the world is looking for a 50/50 split in gender ratios. Most reasonable people believe that even in ideal equilibrium state that this is not the expected outcome (although I'm sure there exist some people that push for 50/50 or greater). But that the current ratio is not the ideal equilibrium state. The author of the paper seems to point out that 50/50 isn't likely the expected ratio -- and then jumps to trying to dismantle affirmative action. 2. He selectively uses research and data from research. For example the impact of stereotypes and individuating. But the research shows that while individuating is effective when it shows clear discrepancy, it isn't effective when there is any ambiguity. That is Maryam Mirzakhani will likely make someone who thinks women aren't good at math think, "But yes, she's actually quite good." But when it comes to more nuanced decisions and decision with a lot less data (which is more commonplace in the workplace), individuating isn't so effective. Determining who should be promoted to lead or VP from a group of pretty strong candidates, will often have the stereotype bias still play a role (and in fairness, depending on exactly the role -- it can benefit females too). This is meant to be an example of research where in the memo one part of the story is told, but not the other. Based on my limited investigation, I don't trust him being impartial in presenting these facts. In much the same way that climate change deniers often point to facts too -- its what they don't point to that is worrisome. Lastly, there is a difference between speaking truth and how you speak truth. This seems obvious to most people outside of engineering. Putting "Catherine has big boobs and I'd have sex with her, if she consented" as part of your sig may be completely factually she true. In fact, it may be obvious to everyone who reads it, but there is a time and a place. If I were a female, I'd have a hard time reporting to Mr. Damore. If I didn't get a promotion, I don't think it would be out of line, to consider what he wrote in the memo. If Mr. Damore ignores my suggestion in a design review, I'd have to again strongly consider if he did so because of my gender. If he rejects all of his women interview candidates -- is that a problem or not? The context of what he wrote, even if done in good faith, creates a more difficult working relationship. My hope is that if Mr. Damore wrote that in good faith, he will take this feedback and make things better for everyone, male and female. He certainly won't have trouble getting job offers (if he wrote it in good faith or not -- there are enough people in tech who don't like women in the industry) -- and if his end goal was to create the environment for the discussion, then he's done that too.

deepnotderp 9y ago

>Only difference being that the author of this article has a PhD in sexual neuroscience Original evil evil author had a PhD/MS in Biology from Harvard

daughart 9y ago
He studied mathematical biology. A PhD/MS should never indicate expertise outside of the field of study.
- deepnotderp 9y ago
  Then it's a good thing that he cited sources (that got removed by Gizmodo, Motherboard, etc.)
  - daughart 9y ago
    As said elsewhere in this thread: Anyone who wants to use "science" in this way needs to read "The Golem" by prominent sociologists of science Collins and Pinch. It's a short, enjoyable read. One of the things you'll learn is that science can only ask the questions humans want to ask, and science often says exactly what people want it to say. https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Should-About-Science-Classics/dp/1107604656; https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Should-About-Science-Classics/d... online link: http://cstpr.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/collins_the_golem.pdf http://cstpr.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/collins_the_gol...
zimpenfish 9y ago
He lied about having a PhD and his MS is presumably in "Systems Biology" (same as his claimed PhD), ie "the computational study of biological systems".

Beltiras 9y ago

Women used to be more prevalent in STEM fields. In the 80's there were actually more female programmers than males. Something changed in the mid 80's and the culprit might have been gender stereotypes in advertising. If the reason for less women in STEM is biological, they would never have outpaced males at any timepoint.

kerbalspacepro 9y ago
It may also have been the type of computing that was going on. Pre-80s computing involved mainframes, data entry... secretarial tasks. Post-80s computing involved building businesses, getting heavily involved in the science, and generally hiding out in a dark room programming alone for weeks at a time. What evidence is there for advertisement stereotyping being the causal factor? Wasn't advertisement stereotyping just as powerful in non-STEM fields like law? medicine? journalism? Why did they break the gender curse whereas STEM did not?
- kamaal 9y ago
  This reminds me of government R&D institutes in India. Where every one gets the title of a 'Scientist'. So there are levels like 'Scientist-1', 'Scientist-2', ... In reality most of these levels have only clerical work to do. Sometimes things like writing down on a register that you issued somebody a Screw gauge. So basically book keeping, secretarial work, data entry etc etc. But yeah, on the ground every gets to be called a 'Scientist'.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > Pre-80s computing involved mainframes, data entry... secretarial tasks. ...sending rockets to the moon...
tzs 9y ago
You are assuming that the change in the 80s was something that made programming less attractive to women. But that's not the only change that could explain what happened. It could be that one or more other fields changed to become more attractive to women. Until people stop focusing on where there women aren't, and instead focus on where the women are, we aren't going to figure out what the problem is in programming, or even figure out if there actually is a problem with programming. There's a graph here [1] showing percent of bachelor's degrees going to women in several different fields over time, from 1970 through 2010. The decline in women getting CS degrees starting in mid '80s really stands out. However what also stands out is that nothing else seems to have gotten a noticeable bump around the same time, so assuming that those women who are missing from CS did not leave college entirely, where are they? It's possible that there is a bump but we just can't see it. There were only about 40000 BS CS degrees granted per year in the middle '80s. Some other fields beat that by a large factor, and so it is possible the missing CS women could have been absorbed into a few of those big majors where the bumps might be small enough to be lost in the noise. Another interesting thing is that if you look just at CS, the total number of CS BS degrees was growing through 1985, then started falling [2]. If you look at just men, and just women, the same thing happened for each. For both, from 1970 to 1985 they were on an accelerating growth curve (almost exponential), and then for both it turned around and fell quickly (also almost exponentially) then leveled off. During that growth phase the women's growth curve was accelerating more than the men's curve. During the decline phase, the women's decline was faster, too. [1] http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor... [2] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2474991/it-careers/women-computer-science-grads--the-bump-before-the-decline.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2474991/it-careers/wome...

bryanlarsen 9y ago

The problem with scientific studies is that they're great at describing a population, but generally have very little predictive power at the individual level. For example, one of the studies that showed boys were better than girls at math showed that if you chose a random boy and a random girl, there was a 55% chance that the boy was better at math. Not very much different from flipping a coin at an individual level, but quite significant in a population.

rexicus 9y ago
Read the memo, James made this distinction numerous times.

zzalpha 9y ago

I'm just gonna copy another comment I made elsewhere: The problem is that the gender differences cited cannot, in aggregate, explain the 70/30 bias toward men in the industry. There's a real similarity to the global warming debate, here. There are many factors that affect global mean temperature. For example, over the very long term, the sun will get brighter. But that can only account for an astonishingly tiny fraction of the warming observed on the planet. Someone who wishes to debate honestly would admit that, while there are many factors that affect global mean temperature, the rise on CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is significant, and has a demonstrable effect on temperature, making it by far the strongest influencer. Someone who wishes to debate dishonestly will use these other explanations as a method to muddy the debate and try and turn attention toward lesser factors that cannot explain the whole effect. Now, if you look at this current "debate", yes, there are undoubtedly biological gender differences that can explain some male/female bias in engineering (among many other disciplines). But no serious psychologist or sociologist would claim that those differences can account for the dramatic real world bias in the industry. It simply doesn't follow. So to claim those gender differences lie at the root of bias in the industry is a distraction. At best it's a gross misunderstanding of the science and statistics. At worst, it's a deliberately dishonest attempt to muddy the waters and confuse the debate. Personally, my bet is it's more the former than the latter.

rwcarlsen 9y ago
I don't think he has a gross misunderstanding of the science. If you look at the example cartoon distributions he draws for gender differences - there is huge overlap. From my reading, he is advocating for non-discriminatory methods of trying to fix that gap. He's basically saying we shouldn't try to fix discrimination (that we think is bad) with discrimination (that we excuse as good).
- zzalpha 9y ago
  He acknowledges that in practice the gender differences are real, but small. Then uses the existence of those small differences to justify fundamentally changing their hiring policies. The latter does not follow from the former. Again, as with the global warming debate, it makes a lot more sense to tackle the larger influencers first, before addressing these smaller factors.

rbehrends 9y ago

> Not much new here. This article is essentially just re-affirming all the scientific statements that were already made in the original memo, backed by links to scientific studies. It's not the biological claims, it's the conclusions he draws from it. Here's the thing. Let's stipulate that all the biological (and esp. neuroscience-related) claims are 100% true. What follows? Let's look at nursing. Clearly, it should be a male-dominated profession, right? The work-life balance (all the night shifts) is horrible and the stress is high (lives in the balance and all that). This is a profession that women should not want, right? Same for accounting. Few professions are less about people and more about things. No room for "gregariousness". Again, a man's job. In contrast, management positions (at least mid-level leadership positions) should be a great fit for women. All about interacting with people and that "gregariousness". Obviously, this is not how the real world works. My point is that we're dealing with wishy-washy criteria here that you can use to argue whichever way your personal biases lie. They are inherently unfalsifiable and hence, unscientific. It's like the story about the blind men and the elephant [1], drawing bold macrosociological conclusions from fairly raw biological and psychological data. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

david38 9y ago
Very little of nursing is like that. Most nursing doesn't have lives in the balance most days. It does require being somewhat social with patients though. You are forgetting one huge thing. Lots of women doing something make it automatically attractive to women just because it'll be common in their circles.
- rbehrends 9y ago
  > Very little of nursing is like that. You can make the same argument about IT. My point is not that what I'm saying is true, but that (like the macrosociological claims in the paper) it sounds plausible, yet is unfalsifiable and hence, unscientific. > You are forgetting one huge thing. Lots of women doing something make it automatically attractive to women just because it'll be common in their circles. I am not forgetting anything. My argument was in essence a reductio ad absurdum. If you want to advance a social argument why women are over- or underrepresented in certain professions and why Damore is therefore wrong, that would be an entirely separate argument. You're welcome to make it on your own, but I don't think the memo is worth that much of a time investment myself.

dapreja 9y ago

This horse is going to get beaten to death like the MNIST dataset with AI tutorials.