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>men would make better programmers than women because of something at the biological or genetic level, which is really the contention around Damore's memo. Whe

>men would make better programmers than women because of something at the biological or genetic level, which is really the contention around Damore's memo. Where does he say this? As for the interviewers, so what? Either the claims are supported by the facts or not, who's agenda is served by those facts is an entirely separate issue.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions. The "and abilities" part is the important bit because it's where he makes a logical leap. So here's what I'm going to ask of you as someone who seems to like Damore's document and likes the scientific process behind it. Can you find me scientific evidence that men are biologically predisposed to have greater tech abilities?
- submersiveblue 9y ago
  I'm not sure what Damore is referring to in that specific quote, but there is evidence of relevant differences, especially if you're talking about recruitment numbers for a company like Google: "A 2005 study by Ian Deary, Paul Irwing, Geoff Der, and Timothy Bates, focusing on the ASVAB showed a significantly higher variance in male scores, resulting in more than twice as many men as women scoring in the top 2%" ..."the study indicated that, while boys and girls performed similarly on average, boys were over-represented among the very best performers as well as among the very worst." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...
  - DrScump 9y ago
    Has there ever been an independent study of how well ASVAB results correlate to later professional success in tech? I took the ASVAB as a teen, and I was relentlessly pursued by military recruiters for years afterward.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Except that same wikipedia article has a whole huge section titled Researchers in favor of no sex differences or inconclusive consensus and also includes this sentence: "The current literature on sex differences produced inconsistent results depending on the type of testing used." It sorta seems like you read until you found a sentence you liked and then didn't go any further... It's not a settled issue at all AND the ASVAB study you're picking doesn't actually connect anything to a biological basis. This is why Damore's paper is bad and why I'm sad that the community is taking it seriously as a scientific source. Some of his statements are cited but plenty aren't and because a fair amount of the people reading it already agree with him, Damore's leaps of logic don't pop out to them. It's not a good paper and it's not very scientific.
    - submersiveblue 9y ago
      Admitting the science isn't settled is enough for me, I'm all for more open discussion on it, and I think that's what Damore was after too.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Except that same wikipedia article has a whole huge section titled Researchers in favor of no sex differences or inconclusive consensus and also includes this sentence: "The current literature on sex differences produced inconsistent results depending on the type of testing used." It sorta seems like you read until you found a sentence you liked and then didn't go any further... It's not a settled issue at all AND the ASVAB study you're picking doesn't actually connect anything to a biological basis. This is why Damore's paper is bad and why I'm sad that the community is taking it seriously as a scientific source. Some of his statements are cited but plenty aren't and because a fair amount of the people reading it already agree with him, Damore's leaps of logic don't pop out to them. It's not a good paper and it's not very scientific.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions. The "and abilities" part is the important bit because it's where he makes a logical leap. So here's what I'm going to ask of you as someone who seems to like Damore's document and likes the scientific process behind it. Can you find me scientific evidence that men are biologically predisposed to have greater tech abilities?

submersiveblue 9y ago
I'm not sure what Damore is referring to in that specific quote, but there is evidence of relevant differences, especially if you're talking about recruitment numbers for a company like Google: "A 2005 study by Ian Deary, Paul Irwing, Geoff Der, and Timothy Bates, focusing on the ASVAB showed a significantly higher variance in male scores, resulting in more than twice as many men as women scoring in the top 2%" ..."the study indicated that, while boys and girls performed similarly on average, boys were over-represented among the very best performers as well as among the very worst." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...
- DrScump 9y ago
  Has there ever been an independent study of how well ASVAB results correlate to later professional success in tech? I took the ASVAB as a teen, and I was relentlessly pursued by military recruiters for years afterward.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Except that same wikipedia article has a whole huge section titled Researchers in favor of no sex differences or inconclusive consensus and also includes this sentence: "The current literature on sex differences produced inconsistent results depending on the type of testing used." It sorta seems like you read until you found a sentence you liked and then didn't go any further... It's not a settled issue at all AND the ASVAB study you're picking doesn't actually connect anything to a biological basis. This is why Damore's paper is bad and why I'm sad that the community is taking it seriously as a scientific source. Some of his statements are cited but plenty aren't and because a fair amount of the people reading it already agree with him, Damore's leaps of logic don't pop out to them. It's not a good paper and it's not very scientific.
  - submersiveblue 9y ago
    Admitting the science isn't settled is enough for me, I'm all for more open discussion on it, and I think that's what Damore was after too.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Except that same wikipedia article has a whole huge section titled Researchers in favor of no sex differences or inconclusive consensus and also includes this sentence: "The current literature on sex differences produced inconsistent results depending on the type of testing used." It sorta seems like you read until you found a sentence you liked and then didn't go any further... It's not a settled issue at all AND the ASVAB study you're picking doesn't actually connect anything to a biological basis. This is why Damore's paper is bad and why I'm sad that the community is taking it seriously as a scientific source. Some of his statements are cited but plenty aren't and because a fair amount of the people reading it already agree with him, Damore's leaps of logic don't pop out to them. It's not a good paper and it's not very scientific.