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It's not possible to "refute" or "prove" his claims. There were many specific claims, and scientists still debate many of them. The bigger point is anyone that

It's not possible to "refute" or "prove" his claims. There were many specific claims, and scientists still debate many of them. The bigger point is anyone that thinks his claims are 100% true or 100% false is definitely wrong.

geofft 9y ago
I have not attempted to refute his claims; they're too messy to make it a coherent task. I have refuted the idea put forth by other people that his claims are supported by the scientific research he links to. (My position, upthread of that comment, is that the document itself doesn't so much make claims that are wrong as display the deficiency of the author's critical-thinking skills to such an extent that Google should not have hired him. Imagine trying to read a design document or an outage postmortem written to the same level of coherence and with the same level of intellectual honesty.)
- brighteyes 9y ago
  Some of his claims are supported by the linked documents, some are not. Again, there are so many, any conclusion of "100% are supported" or "100% are not" is going to be false.
  - geofft 9y ago
    Can you name one claim that is relevant to diversity at Google that is supported by any of the linked documents? I do agree (and admit as much in that comment!) that there are claims that he correctly cites, e.g. "Women score higher for 'neuroticism' as defined by psychology." My contention is that none of those claims are relevant to any plausible thesis of the document. (I think that saying "there exist irrelevant claims that are supported by science" is completely pedantic. If I write an nonsense essay about garbage collection vs. refcounting and correctly cite a scientific paper on the acidity of apple juice, I think it's perfectly justifiable to say that none of my claims are supported, since it's not an essay about apple juice.)
    - brighteyes 9y ago
      Sure, here is a concrete example of a linked document that supports his position http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf and the references therein. In particular, > sex differences in personality traits can be detected in early childhood [..] and remain fairly constant across adulthood [..] The effects of these sex differences lead to predictable differences in men’s and women’s leisure behaviors, occupational preferences, and health-related outcomes [emphasis mine] Overall I think it's possible for reasonable people to disagree on whether group differences in neuroticism and agreeability or an affinity to people vs. things etc. etc. are or are not not relevant to the thesis. I respect your point of view that they do not. I'm just saying a reasonable argument can be made for the other side too. (To be clear, he also makes several bad arguments, I'm not defending him. I'm just saying that some of his claims are supported by science.)
      - geofft 9y ago
        Occupational preferences are not the subject of the document, though. The subject is occupational qualification. The specific things he criticizes Google for doing are actions taken once minority candidates have already applied for a job, that is, once they have already expressed interest in the occupation they're applying for: they're about reducing unconscious bias in hiring, reducing the false negative rate in Google's notoriously noisy interview process, ensuring that internal groups meet standards of representation, etc. I just reread the document to confirm I read it right the first time. The subtle implication, and I'd argue one of the most harmful effects of the document, is the claim that biases (whether from nature or nurture) in interest also translate to biases in ability. There's a huge difference between saying "More men than women are interested in the job but we've got to hire the most qualified people regardless of either gender or interest" (and he almost gets there in his discussion of men seeking high-status jobs!), which I don't think I could really complain about, and "More men than women are interested in the job so our efforts to hire women are 'effectively lowering the bar' and probably illegal." If you are at the point where you have 10 resumes on your desk from 10 qualified women, and 10 resumes on your desk from 10 qualified men, and you put together a team of 9 men and one woman, no matter how true it is that women as a whole are less interested in the job, it's not relevant. (Incidentally, that's a quote from the portion of the abstract where they're mentioning existing research instead of their own, and it cites three sources, the first of which is a book by a lawyer that appears to be targeted at the general non-fiction market. I'm rather surprised that this is a permissible citation in a scientific paper, and I'm wondering if my standards are wrong or this isn't a super reputable journal.)
- deleted 9y ago
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geofft 9y ago

I have not attempted to refute his claims; they're too messy to make it a coherent task. I have refuted the idea put forth by other people that his claims are supported by the scientific research he links to. (My position, upthread of that comment, is that the document itself doesn't so much make claims that are wrong as display the deficiency of the author's critical-thinking skills to such an extent that Google should not have hired him. Imagine trying to read a design document or an outage postmortem written to the same level of coherence and with the same level of intellectual honesty.)

brighteyes 9y ago
Some of his claims are supported by the linked documents, some are not. Again, there are so many, any conclusion of "100% are supported" or "100% are not" is going to be false.
- geofft 9y ago
  Can you name one claim that is relevant to diversity at Google that is supported by any of the linked documents? I do agree (and admit as much in that comment!) that there are claims that he correctly cites, e.g. "Women score higher for 'neuroticism' as defined by psychology." My contention is that none of those claims are relevant to any plausible thesis of the document. (I think that saying "there exist irrelevant claims that are supported by science" is completely pedantic. If I write an nonsense essay about garbage collection vs. refcounting and correctly cite a scientific paper on the acidity of apple juice, I think it's perfectly justifiable to say that none of my claims are supported, since it's not an essay about apple juice.)
  - brighteyes 9y ago
    Sure, here is a concrete example of a linked document that supports his position http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf and the references therein. In particular, > sex differences in personality traits can be detected in early childhood [..] and remain fairly constant across adulthood [..] The effects of these sex differences lead to predictable differences in men’s and women’s leisure behaviors, occupational preferences, and health-related outcomes [emphasis mine] Overall I think it's possible for reasonable people to disagree on whether group differences in neuroticism and agreeability or an affinity to people vs. things etc. etc. are or are not not relevant to the thesis. I respect your point of view that they do not. I'm just saying a reasonable argument can be made for the other side too. (To be clear, he also makes several bad arguments, I'm not defending him. I'm just saying that some of his claims are supported by science.)
    - geofft 9y ago
      Occupational preferences are not the subject of the document, though. The subject is occupational qualification. The specific things he criticizes Google for doing are actions taken once minority candidates have already applied for a job, that is, once they have already expressed interest in the occupation they're applying for: they're about reducing unconscious bias in hiring, reducing the false negative rate in Google's notoriously noisy interview process, ensuring that internal groups meet standards of representation, etc. I just reread the document to confirm I read it right the first time. The subtle implication, and I'd argue one of the most harmful effects of the document, is the claim that biases (whether from nature or nurture) in interest also translate to biases in ability. There's a huge difference between saying "More men than women are interested in the job but we've got to hire the most qualified people regardless of either gender or interest" (and he almost gets there in his discussion of men seeking high-status jobs!), which I don't think I could really complain about, and "More men than women are interested in the job so our efforts to hire women are 'effectively lowering the bar' and probably illegal." If you are at the point where you have 10 resumes on your desk from 10 qualified women, and 10 resumes on your desk from 10 qualified men, and you put together a team of 9 men and one woman, no matter how true it is that women as a whole are less interested in the job, it's not relevant. (Incidentally, that's a quote from the portion of the abstract where they're mentioning existing research instead of their own, and it cites three sources, the first of which is a book by a lawyer that appears to be targeted at the general non-fiction market. I'm rather surprised that this is a permissible citation in a scientific paper, and I'm wondering if my standards are wrong or this isn't a super reputable journal.)
deleted 9y ago
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