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Your hypothesis doesn't explain the data any better than mine. Would you really predict the Arab states, with their incredibly progressive views on feminism, to

Your hypothesis doesn't explain the data any better than mine. Would you really predict the Arab states, with their incredibly progressive views on feminism, to have higher percentage of female researchers? It really isn't weird to you that Russia, in just 20 years, went back to the same levels of everyone else after all the "progress" they made? Cultures don't change that quickly. The statistics are nearly useless anyway because of how differently they are measured. Women are much more represented in "soft sciences" like biology. But in math etc, the percentage has been pretty consistent. Math majors show a huge increase in women. But when you dig into it, it turns out that they are going into it to become math teachers. And the actual percentage of female Math researchers is the lowest of all of STEM. And pretty consistent through time. And our culture has changed a hell of a lot. Why is it so implausible to you that it's biology? You want some links and statistics? Try reading this: http://www.sci-hub.la/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x http://www.sci-hub.la/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x >gender differences on the people–things dimension of interests are ‘very large’ (d= 1.18), with women more people-oriented and less thing-oriented than men. Gender differences in personality tend to be larger in gender-egalitarian societies than in gender- inegalitarian societies, a finding that contradicts social role theory but is consistent with evolution- ary, attributional, and social comparison theories. In contrast, gender differences in interests appear to be consistent across cultures and over time, a finding that suggests possible biologic influences. d=1.18 is one of the largest effect sizes I've seen in a social science. It means something like 93% of men are more "thing oriented" than the average woman.

dguaraglia 9y ago
> Your hypothesis doesn't explain the data any better than mine. My "hypothesis" is that without trying to eliminate the cultural factors, we'll never be able to actually measure how strongly the alleged biological factors affect behavior. So no, my hypothesis doesn't explain anything, because it doesn't try to. > And our culture has changed a hell of a lot. Our academic scientific culture is barely 200 years old. Female participation in academic culture is way younger than that, with most of the earlier examples (like Marie Curie) being known as "weirdos" in their time because they didn't behave like "normal women". Our current cultural system is thousands of years old, yet you expect that the last 100 years of science to have fixed all disparities accrued over millennia. Doesn't sound very realistic. > Why is it so implausible to you that it's biology? Why is it implausible to you that it is culture, when there are reams of data showing that different cultures perform differently? You are cherrypicking data that supports your thesis and completely ignoring everything else. Why? Notice that even the paper you link is hedging when making the claim: "In contrast, gender differences in interests appear to be consistent across cultures and over time, a finding that suggests possible biologic influences." But you, somehow, are 100% sure. Weird. Makes me think you have an agenda first, and look for evidence to back it up second, just like Damore did.
- Houshalter 9y ago
  Before I go any further, just answer this one question. Is there literally any conceivable evidence that could convince you that you are wrong? That there are biological differences between men and women? This is a basic scientific question. It has nothing to do with politics. You accuse me of "having an agenda" just because I disagree with you. You accuse damore of being "alt right" and defend his firing, just because he believes a relatively uncontroversial scientific claim. You accuse me of "cherrypicking data" when I've done nothing of the sort. Yet apparently cherrypicking a few random countries with different stats to support your bizarre culture theory is fine. But as I've shown your model doesn't make any sense of the data either, which apparently isn't a problem for you. What even is your theory? Yeah, it's "culture", sure. But what predictions does that make? How can it be disproved? If I show, for example, that there's the same percentage of female computer science graduates as female tech workers, does that disprove it? Does your theory predict that? "But the sexism is happening before the industry then." Ok. So what about the same percentage of female high schoolers interested in computer science as female computer science majors. Does your theory predict that? "The sexism is happening before then." Well we can go back to middle school. Hell let's go back to early childhood, and we find boys and girls show strong preferences for different kinds of toys. That seems pretty damning for your theory to me. But that's far from the only evidence. Does your model predict neurological differences between male and female brains? That doesn't make any sense if all differences must be explained by culture. >Female participation in academic culture is way younger than that, with most of the earlier examples (like Marie Curie) being known as "weirdos" in their time because they didn't behave like "normal women" Exactly! 160 years ago women were excluded from many areas. There were no women doctors, few women at universities, no women lawyers, etc. Now, in 2017, we've reversed all that. There are more women getting university educations than men! They make up 51% of law students, 50% of medical students, 75% of psychology majors, etc, etc. And yet in engineering they make up 20%. And it's been that way, consistently, for decades. And shows no signs of changing even as culture continues to change. Think about this. It makes no sense to your theory. Why should culture change so quickly for every other area but engineering. (And also why the double standard of caring so much about gender ratios in engineering, and not any other area like psychology or university in general?)

dguaraglia 9y ago

> Your hypothesis doesn't explain the data any better than mine. My "hypothesis" is that without trying to eliminate the cultural factors, we'll never be able to actually measure how strongly the alleged biological factors affect behavior. So no, my hypothesis doesn't explain anything, because it doesn't try to. > And our culture has changed a hell of a lot. Our academic scientific culture is barely 200 years old. Female participation in academic culture is way younger than that, with most of the earlier examples (like Marie Curie) being known as "weirdos" in their time because they didn't behave like "normal women". Our current cultural system is thousands of years old, yet you expect that the last 100 years of science to have fixed all disparities accrued over millennia. Doesn't sound very realistic. > Why is it so implausible to you that it's biology? Why is it implausible to you that it is culture, when there are reams of data showing that different cultures perform differently? You are cherrypicking data that supports your thesis and completely ignoring everything else. Why? Notice that even the paper you link is hedging when making the claim: "In contrast, gender differences in interests appear to be consistent across cultures and over time, a finding that suggests possible biologic influences." But you, somehow, are 100% sure. Weird. Makes me think you have an agenda first, and look for evidence to back it up second, just like Damore did.

Houshalter 9y ago
Before I go any further, just answer this one question. Is there literally any conceivable evidence that could convince you that you are wrong? That there are biological differences between men and women? This is a basic scientific question. It has nothing to do with politics. You accuse me of "having an agenda" just because I disagree with you. You accuse damore of being "alt right" and defend his firing, just because he believes a relatively uncontroversial scientific claim. You accuse me of "cherrypicking data" when I've done nothing of the sort. Yet apparently cherrypicking a few random countries with different stats to support your bizarre culture theory is fine. But as I've shown your model doesn't make any sense of the data either, which apparently isn't a problem for you. What even is your theory? Yeah, it's "culture", sure. But what predictions does that make? How can it be disproved? If I show, for example, that there's the same percentage of female computer science graduates as female tech workers, does that disprove it? Does your theory predict that? "But the sexism is happening before the industry then." Ok. So what about the same percentage of female high schoolers interested in computer science as female computer science majors. Does your theory predict that? "The sexism is happening before then." Well we can go back to middle school. Hell let's go back to early childhood, and we find boys and girls show strong preferences for different kinds of toys. That seems pretty damning for your theory to me. But that's far from the only evidence. Does your model predict neurological differences between male and female brains? That doesn't make any sense if all differences must be explained by culture. >Female participation in academic culture is way younger than that, with most of the earlier examples (like Marie Curie) being known as "weirdos" in their time because they didn't behave like "normal women" Exactly! 160 years ago women were excluded from many areas. There were no women doctors, few women at universities, no women lawyers, etc. Now, in 2017, we've reversed all that. There are more women getting university educations than men! They make up 51% of law students, 50% of medical students, 75% of psychology majors, etc, etc. And yet in engineering they make up 20%. And it's been that way, consistently, for decades. And shows no signs of changing even as culture continues to change. Think about this. It makes no sense to your theory. Why should culture change so quickly for every other area but engineering. (And also why the double standard of caring so much about gender ratios in engineering, and not any other area like psychology or university in general?)