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I tried to explain this in a blog post. It also irritates me why this is so consequently misinterpreted, as it makes for quite a big difference for the overall

I tried to explain this in a blog post. It also irritates me why this is so consequently misinterpreted, as it makes for quite a big difference for the overall narrative. Because of course if someone would claim that an individual woman cannot be as good as an individual man in engineering (or better), that person would be an idiot. "Misunderstanding statistical distribution" https://medium.com/@martinweigert/misunderstanding-probability-distribution-ee19f8537415 https://medium.com/@martinweigert/misunderstanding-probabili...

lukev 9y ago
That's a strawman. Nobody is saying that Damore thinks every man is a better programmer than every woman. He suggested that on average men are biologically more suited to programming, and the contention of his opponents is that that is still a problematic and inappropriate thing to say.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  He very clearly stated that the average male programmer is as good as the average female programmer. Please don't insinuate otherwise by stripping away some of the semantics Mr. Damore used - he used it for a reason to make a more precise claim than you're criticizing.
  - lukev 9y ago
    Again, that's not the argument. Even stating that men are more suited to become programmers* is problematic!
    - Veen 9y ago
      Is it problematic if it's true?
    - Veelox 9y ago
      Say I could prove that in a fair society 2 out of every 100 men would want to be programmers and only 1 out of every 100 women want that. Would stating that be problematic?
- imartin2k 9y ago
  Edit: Sorry, I misread your comment, lukev. It's not a strawman though. This is exactly how many of the harshest critics of the memo have described his stance. Too many to count. Stating "members from group X are better than members from group y" (which is how Damore's opponents describe his claim) is a not the same as stating that “more people from group X than from group Y might be suitable for this job”. The first is qualitative, the latter quantitative. The latter also implies that members of group y can be as good. I am sure everyone has experienced how sentences and context radically can change through the addition or omission of just one or two words. Here we have such a case, and it should be acknowledged.
  - jccalhoun 9y ago
    >Stating "members from group X are better than members from group y" (which is how Damore's opponents describe his claim) is a not the same as stating that “more people from group X than from group Y might be suitable for this job”. The first is qualitative, the latter quantitative. But the problem is that it isn't any more quantitative because it still depends on the highly subjective notion of what it means to be "suitable for this job" and assumes that there is only one way to be "suitable."

lukev 9y ago

That's a strawman. Nobody is saying that Damore thinks every man is a better programmer than every woman. He suggested that on average men are biologically more suited to programming, and the contention of his opponents is that that is still a problematic and inappropriate thing to say.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago
He very clearly stated that the average male programmer is as good as the average female programmer. Please don't insinuate otherwise by stripping away some of the semantics Mr. Damore used - he used it for a reason to make a more precise claim than you're criticizing.
- lukev 9y ago
  Again, that's not the argument. Even stating that men are more suited to become programmers* is problematic!
  - Veen 9y ago
    Is it problematic if it's true?
  - Veelox 9y ago
    Say I could prove that in a fair society 2 out of every 100 men would want to be programmers and only 1 out of every 100 women want that. Would stating that be problematic?
imartin2k 9y ago
Edit: Sorry, I misread your comment, lukev. It's not a strawman though. This is exactly how many of the harshest critics of the memo have described his stance. Too many to count. Stating "members from group X are better than members from group y" (which is how Damore's opponents describe his claim) is a not the same as stating that “more people from group X than from group Y might be suitable for this job”. The first is qualitative, the latter quantitative. The latter also implies that members of group y can be as good. I am sure everyone has experienced how sentences and context radically can change through the addition or omission of just one or two words. Here we have such a case, and it should be acknowledged.
- jccalhoun 9y ago
  >Stating "members from group X are better than members from group y" (which is how Damore's opponents describe his claim) is a not the same as stating that “more people from group X than from group Y might be suitable for this job”. The first is qualitative, the latter quantitative. But the problem is that it isn't any more quantitative because it still depends on the highly subjective notion of what it means to be "suitable for this job" and assumes that there is only one way to be "suitable."