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There are women working at Google who do not need to be reminded of the genetic and biologic differences they have from their cishet male counterparts. I'm a w

There are women working at Google who do not need to be reminded of the genetic and biologic differences they have from their cishet male counterparts. I'm a white male. I know that the average Asian has a higher IQ than the average white man. This means positively nothing when comparing me with a given Asian, however. That is the root of this discussion that so many so profoundly miss. The average Google male is not the average male. The average Google female is not the average female. He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a perverse misreading. He was saying that on the whole there's a biological reason when you roll the dice enough that more males are suitable for that work. In the scientific community this is utterly indisputable, in the same way that there are far more exceptional males (and autistic males), just as there are far more mentally handicapped males. That doesn't preclude handicapped or exceptional females, it's just less common.

tomp 9y ago
> I know that the average Asian has a higher IQ than the average white man. How can you be sure that it's the average Asia, as opposed to the average Asian in the US? IMO a better example would be to use Ashkenazi Jews... or are they too white to count?
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
  Yeah, he slipped in a huge assumption there as if it's established fact. Of course Asians in the US are smart. There is a high bar for foreigners entering the US. This is the genius behind "Give me your tired, your poor". We actually end up taking the hard working, wealthy ones who've gotten into college by passing tests in their second language at the same age as we go to school.
  - thegayngler 9y ago
    There was an article awhile back in the NYT stating that in many cases asians people can be found cheating on those tests or lying about their educational background. Lets face it. They have resources to both cheat and get tutoring on the ways to pass an exam. Lets see how everyone does cold turkey when all of the outside factors like money and resources other than race and gender are held constant. What are the results of a study like that? That would be a more interesting test than saying X or Y is genetically more suited to this field. Most if not all of that line of reasoning is based on 1000 year old social constructs...and the mountains of "research" that was later made up to give it credibility when people started to question these social constructs.
    - unityByFreedom 9y ago
      > Lets see how everyone does cold turkey when all of the outside factors like money and resources other than race and gender are held constant. It's impossible to completely separate biological from environmental factors. They're interdependent. I agree that better research would be the proper way to attack this problem. It seems we will be stuck perpetually debating nature vs. nurture [1] for as long as we exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture
KirinDave 9y ago
> He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a perverse misreading. Quite frankly: many people do. Some of them are at Google. James chose to run headlong into this discussion without any practical knowledge of the discourse. His point was poorly delivered precisely because it leaves open such radical room for misrepresenting it. Discussions of social issues MUST be informed by the social discourse they enter, even if armed with science and evidence. To suggest otherwise is obviously wrong. No one owes James a charitable reading. And if you think the "mobs" of liberals are misrepresenting his point, you should see where MRA/goreans are going with it.
- pharrington 9y ago
  Yes, James isn't owed a charitable reading. He is owed a rational reading. addendum: Irrational people misinterpreting a text is precisely that. Surely you can't be saying that a text having a fairly high bar for intelligent interpretation and discussion is reason for that text to not exist?
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    It is not irrational to misinterpret poorly written, poorly worded, and inconclusive text. Reading a text is a dialogue. If the writer did not appropriately express the intent, then they invite the reader to finish the thought. And this even rational people can arrive at different conclusions. To suggest every reading you don't approve of as "irrational" is a predictable, even classical tactic. Many words exist for it, but in the end the notion of blaming the reader for finishing an incomplete thought is an exercise in futility. The reader has no choice.
    - pharrington 9y ago
      You said "his point was poorly delivered precisely because it leaves open such radical room for misrepresenting it," and then contrasted how "mobs of liberals" are reading it with "MRA/goreans." Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but your original post was explicitly about irrational misinterpretations. If you want to talk about how the memo was poorly written, talk about how the memo was poorly written. The readings of others certainly can supplement your analysis, but you haven't provided that analysis. The memo begins with it's intent, and even has a TLDR after the opening three paragraphs. Also, while the memo was mostly trying to assess the current state and factors of the gender imbalance in tech and Google particularly, it does provide several, literal, conclusions. Here are just a few: >We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. >Women on average are more cooperative [...] Allow those exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive. Recent updates to Perf may be doing this to an extent, but maybe there's more we can do. >Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits. If you actually read the memo, and have actual problems with what was actually written, then talk about that. There's certainly plenty to discuss and to rationally disagree about, but you have yet to say anything substantial about the thing you're criticizing.
harichinnan 9y ago
Please visit "Asia". Don't go to Japan or South Korea or one of the city states. Go to India or China or somewhere in middle east. I don't think there are biological differences that would make people of the largest continent more smarter than another group.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  There are selection effects in place when immigration enters the picture.
- SamReidHughes 9y ago
  You just need different relative reproduction rates or different levels of assortative mating. For example, the Khmer Rouge may have affected Cambodia's IQ distribution (negatively) but Cambodians don't now have "biological differences" per se.
- stagbeetle 9y ago
  The colloquial "Asian" means East Asian/Far Eastern. This includes Japanese, Chinese, both Koreans, Taiwanese, and Mongolians. Commonly, anyone with epicanthic folds. In this case, I don't think the OP was talking about biological differences. It's widely known that the aforementioned cultures (especially Japan and China) are very big on having their careers and studies at the center of their lives. In this case, it would be nurture giving these groups an advantage over their Western counterparts. Who, ignoring the top-tiers, on average are not known for their industry.
dahart 9y ago
> He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a perverse misreading. He was saying that on the whole there's a biological reason when you roll the dice enough that more males are suitable for that work. I don't understand what you said there, can you elaborate? What is the difference between males being more biologically suitable and females being at a disadvantage? From my perspective, you just contradicted yourself, can you help me understand why it's not a contradiction? What the memo proposed is that it's "possible" there are fewer women in tech right now because of the biological differences. He may not have claimed it as fact, but he implied it. The problem I have with the implication is that it's obvious that evolutionary forces are not the primary causes of the current distribution, because the distribution of women in tech has changed drastically in the last 50 years faster than evolution's say in the matter. It's not possible that the current distribution is primarily caused by biological differences, and it's exceedingly likely that it is caused by social issues. But he suggested it is possible, and followed that by suggesting we should stop treating it like a social issue because it's possible. And all of this so far is ignoring that the memo unironically takes the opposite stance on the minority group of conservatives. So what is the root part that I'm missing?
- ta2017 9y ago
  Suppose you have one million red cars and one million blue cars. Red cars get better gas mileage on average. Suppose you select the 100 red cars with the best gas mileage among the red cars and the 100 blue cars with the best gas mileage among the blue cars. Which group of 100 cars has better average gas mileage?
- dropstickle 9y ago
  Let's say you are an american. 60% of americans are overweight. Does that mean you are overweight?
  - manigandham 9y ago
    Also Americans on average are more overweight than Japanese. This does not mean there are no overweight Japanese or thin Americans, or that either are less capable of a specific sport.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gammarator 9y ago
1) Google does not hire by sampling at random from a population above an IQ cutoff; you are misusing statistical ideas. http://crookedtimber.org/2017/08/11/from-a-logical-point-of-view/ http://crookedtimber.org/2017/08/11/from-a-logical-point-of-... 2) "IQ" (or math ability, or whatever) does not measure if someone is an effective engineer, which is what Google actually wants. 3) Women are also underrepresented throughout software engineering, at places far less rarified than Google. You don't have to be a genius to write a CRUD app--but somehow it's still mostly dudes. I wonder if there could be any other effects that would discourage women from taking those jobs? 4) Have you ever asked a women in tech--any woman, grab the nearest one--if she's had negative experiences in tech? Say, being dismissed, ignored, talked over, harassed?
- endorphone 9y ago
  Your first points are nonsensical and requires that we believe that technical/problem solving skills and IQ have no correlation, when actual reality demonstrates a very strong correlation. Not a perfect correlation, obviously, but very high. Your third point again is based on a bogus premise. To get those CRUD jobs the developers often went through a gauntlet of CS (or shining independently through projects, etc), hiring selectivity (everyone hires the "top 2%", etc). Even if the job is banal, the road to get there is often very demanding. As to your fourth, I have no doubt that many women in tech have negative experiences. Having said that, many males in tech have negative experiences. I'm a fairly outgoing, obstinate, outspoken type of person and I know in my career I've left a wake of male coworkers who were dismissed and talked over. This industry tends to be hierarchical, and when it's a male that's life, and when it's a female that's sexism.

tomp 9y ago

> I know that the average Asian has a higher IQ than the average white man. How can you be sure that it's the average Asia, as opposed to the average Asian in the US? IMO a better example would be to use Ashkenazi Jews... or are they too white to count?

unityByFreedom 9y ago
Yeah, he slipped in a huge assumption there as if it's established fact. Of course Asians in the US are smart. There is a high bar for foreigners entering the US. This is the genius behind "Give me your tired, your poor". We actually end up taking the hard working, wealthy ones who've gotten into college by passing tests in their second language at the same age as we go to school.
- thegayngler 9y ago
  There was an article awhile back in the NYT stating that in many cases asians people can be found cheating on those tests or lying about their educational background. Lets face it. They have resources to both cheat and get tutoring on the ways to pass an exam. Lets see how everyone does cold turkey when all of the outside factors like money and resources other than race and gender are held constant. What are the results of a study like that? That would be a more interesting test than saying X or Y is genetically more suited to this field. Most if not all of that line of reasoning is based on 1000 year old social constructs...and the mountains of "research" that was later made up to give it credibility when people started to question these social constructs.
  - unityByFreedom 9y ago
    > Lets see how everyone does cold turkey when all of the outside factors like money and resources other than race and gender are held constant. It's impossible to completely separate biological from environmental factors. They're interdependent. I agree that better research would be the proper way to attack this problem. It seems we will be stuck perpetually debating nature vs. nurture [1] for as long as we exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture

KirinDave 9y ago

> He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a perverse misreading. Quite frankly: many people do. Some of them are at Google. James chose to run headlong into this discussion without any practical knowledge of the discourse. His point was poorly delivered precisely because it leaves open such radical room for misrepresenting it. Discussions of social issues MUST be informed by the social discourse they enter, even if armed with science and evidence. To suggest otherwise is obviously wrong. No one owes James a charitable reading. And if you think the "mobs" of liberals are misrepresenting his point, you should see where MRA/goreans are going with it.

pharrington 9y ago
Yes, James isn't owed a charitable reading. He is owed a rational reading. addendum: Irrational people misinterpreting a text is precisely that. Surely you can't be saying that a text having a fairly high bar for intelligent interpretation and discussion is reason for that text to not exist?
- KirinDave 9y ago
  It is not irrational to misinterpret poorly written, poorly worded, and inconclusive text. Reading a text is a dialogue. If the writer did not appropriately express the intent, then they invite the reader to finish the thought. And this even rational people can arrive at different conclusions. To suggest every reading you don't approve of as "irrational" is a predictable, even classical tactic. Many words exist for it, but in the end the notion of blaming the reader for finishing an incomplete thought is an exercise in futility. The reader has no choice.
  - pharrington 9y ago
    You said "his point was poorly delivered precisely because it leaves open such radical room for misrepresenting it," and then contrasted how "mobs of liberals" are reading it with "MRA/goreans." Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but your original post was explicitly about irrational misinterpretations. If you want to talk about how the memo was poorly written, talk about how the memo was poorly written. The readings of others certainly can supplement your analysis, but you haven't provided that analysis. The memo begins with it's intent, and even has a TLDR after the opening three paragraphs. Also, while the memo was mostly trying to assess the current state and factors of the gender imbalance in tech and Google particularly, it does provide several, literal, conclusions. Here are just a few: >We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. >Women on average are more cooperative [...] Allow those exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive. Recent updates to Perf may be doing this to an extent, but maybe there's more we can do. >Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits. If you actually read the memo, and have actual problems with what was actually written, then talk about that. There's certainly plenty to discuss and to rationally disagree about, but you have yet to say anything substantial about the thing you're criticizing.

harichinnan 9y ago

Please visit "Asia". Don't go to Japan or South Korea or one of the city states. Go to India or China or somewhere in middle east. I don't think there are biological differences that would make people of the largest continent more smarter than another group.

humanrebar 9y ago
There are selection effects in place when immigration enters the picture.
SamReidHughes 9y ago
You just need different relative reproduction rates or different levels of assortative mating. For example, the Khmer Rouge may have affected Cambodia's IQ distribution (negatively) but Cambodians don't now have "biological differences" per se.
stagbeetle 9y ago
The colloquial "Asian" means East Asian/Far Eastern. This includes Japanese, Chinese, both Koreans, Taiwanese, and Mongolians. Commonly, anyone with epicanthic folds. In this case, I don't think the OP was talking about biological differences. It's widely known that the aforementioned cultures (especially Japan and China) are very big on having their careers and studies at the center of their lives. In this case, it would be nurture giving these groups an advantage over their Western counterparts. Who, ignoring the top-tiers, on average are not known for their industry.

dahart 9y ago

> He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a perverse misreading. He was saying that on the whole there's a biological reason when you roll the dice enough that more males are suitable for that work. I don't understand what you said there, can you elaborate? What is the difference between males being more biologically suitable and females being at a disadvantage? From my perspective, you just contradicted yourself, can you help me understand why it's not a contradiction? What the memo proposed is that it's "possible" there are fewer women in tech right now because of the biological differences. He may not have claimed it as fact, but he implied it. The problem I have with the implication is that it's obvious that evolutionary forces are not the primary causes of the current distribution, because the distribution of women in tech has changed drastically in the last 50 years faster than evolution's say in the matter. It's not possible that the current distribution is primarily caused by biological differences, and it's exceedingly likely that it is caused by social issues. But he suggested it is possible, and followed that by suggesting we should stop treating it like a social issue because it's possible. And all of this so far is ignoring that the memo unironically takes the opposite stance on the minority group of conservatives. So what is the root part that I'm missing?

ta2017 9y ago
Suppose you have one million red cars and one million blue cars. Red cars get better gas mileage on average. Suppose you select the 100 red cars with the best gas mileage among the red cars and the 100 blue cars with the best gas mileage among the blue cars. Which group of 100 cars has better average gas mileage?
dropstickle 9y ago
Let's say you are an american. 60% of americans are overweight. Does that mean you are overweight?
- manigandham 9y ago
  Also Americans on average are more overweight than Japanese. This does not mean there are no overweight Japanese or thin Americans, or that either are less capable of a specific sport.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

gammarator 9y ago

1) Google does not hire by sampling at random from a population above an IQ cutoff; you are misusing statistical ideas. http://crookedtimber.org/2017/08/11/from-a-logical-point-of-view/ http://crookedtimber.org/2017/08/11/from-a-logical-point-of-... 2) "IQ" (or math ability, or whatever) does not measure if someone is an effective engineer, which is what Google actually wants. 3) Women are also underrepresented throughout software engineering, at places far less rarified than Google. You don't have to be a genius to write a CRUD app--but somehow it's still mostly dudes. I wonder if there could be any other effects that would discourage women from taking those jobs? 4) Have you ever asked a women in tech--any woman, grab the nearest one--if she's had negative experiences in tech? Say, being dismissed, ignored, talked over, harassed?

endorphone 9y ago
Your first points are nonsensical and requires that we believe that technical/problem solving skills and IQ have no correlation, when actual reality demonstrates a very strong correlation. Not a perfect correlation, obviously, but very high. Your third point again is based on a bogus premise. To get those CRUD jobs the developers often went through a gauntlet of CS (or shining independently through projects, etc), hiring selectivity (everyone hires the "top 2%", etc). Even if the job is banal, the road to get there is often very demanding. As to your fourth, I have no doubt that many women in tech have negative experiences. Having said that, many males in tech have negative experiences. I'm a fairly outgoing, obstinate, outspoken type of person and I know in my career I've left a wake of male coworkers who were dismissed and talked over. This industry tends to be hierarchical, and when it's a male that's life, and when it's a female that's sexism.