5 ms·

What? Did we read the same memo? One of his central points is that the representation gap between men and women in technology is due to different biological dis

by lukev 9y ago

What? Did we read the same memo? One of his central points is that the representation gap between men and women in technology is due to different biological distributions. From the memo: > 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. Minus a bit of softening language ("in part", "may"), proposing that women are on average less biologically capable of programming is exactly what he's saying. Also, because I know how HN works, let me pre-empt the inevitable reply to this one: "but what if there ARE sex differences?! shouldn't we be allowed to talk about that!? Freedom of speech!?!" Scientists who study this stuff (including those cited by Damore) can and do talk about it, and the consensus is that biological sex differences are not that big of an effect, certainly not enough to explain the gender disparity in tech. What effects there may be are absolutely dominated by sociological factors. Sociological factors that some companies are attempting to counter, which is what Damore didn't like, which is why he issued his complain-y memo to start with. And THAT is why people are upset with him. Not because he's an amateur biologist with a day job as a programmer who just earnestly wants to have an innocent conversation about sexual dimorphism. It's because he's just another brogrammer whose jimmies got rustled by the thought of women being his peers, and decided to insult (on average) his female colleagues and create a hostile work environment for which he was (quite correctly) fired.

Alex3917 9y ago
> the consensus is that biological sex differences are not that big of an effect, certainly not enough to explain the gender disparity in tech. Whether sex differences explain the gender disparity in tech isn't even the kind of question that cog dev folks ask.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
  > You're making stuff up. Hey, let's keep things civil. Please consider Hanlon's Razor in this case. How about something like, "I don't think you're correct about the consensus. Citations please?"
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    Fair, edited my comment.
- lukev 9y ago
  Except it is. Damore himself cites a study by David Schmitt at Bradley University, indicating that women had certain personality traits across cultures. What did Shmitt have to say about Damore, when interviewed? > “It is unclear to me that this sex difference would play a role in success within the Google workplace (in particular, not being able to handle stresses of leadership in the workplace. That’s a huge stretch to me.)” For more, check out the citations on this article: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/16/16153740/tech-diversity-problem-science-history-explainer-inequality https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/16/16153740/tech-diversity-p... Finally, even if the facts were true that women on averaged perform worse in tech, how do you want to use that information? Cancel all the sensitivity programs designed to solve other very real problems in tech? Or are you saying not only that biology "plays a role", but that _nothing else does_ so we should just completely ignore this as an issue?
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    > It is unclear to me that this sex difference would play a role in success within the Google workplace (in particular, not being able to handle stresses of leadership in the workplace. That’s a huge stretch to me.) In other words, "that's not the kind of question we ask." Also I looked at the citations, neither of the metastudies looks at differences in sensory perception which imho are the most interesting of the sex differences. But even ignoring that, looking at the statistical significance of certain population traits doesn't tell you anything about their clinical significance. E.g. if you look at two groups of 100 people and one group is 100% alive and the other group is 99% alive, there isn't a significant effect size, but there is a big difference to that one person.
xeeeeeeeeeeenu 9y ago
>Scientists who study this stuff (including those cited by Damore) can and do talk about it, and the consensus is that biological sex differences are not that big of an effect, certainly not enough to explain the gender disparity in tech. What effects there may be are absolutely dominated by sociological factors. [citation needed]
- lukev 9y ago
  You probably won't like the tone of this article, but I think you'll find it difficult to argue with it's citation list: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/16/16153740/tech-diversity-problem-science-history-explainer-inequality https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/16/16153740/tech-diversity-p...
  - dqv 9y ago
    Ok, I'm not trying to be snarky, but journalists aren't scientists. The article cites statistics that re-confirm what we already knew - that women are highly under-represented. But what seems to be missing (and what I had hoped for) is research showing that "the consensus is that biological sex differences are not that big of an effect, certainly not enough to explain the gender disparity in tech." I feel like the article should be overflowing with references to this if it's a consensus. It turns out that even this article admits that > there’s very little scientists know for certain about which behaviors are due to biology, and which are because of society’s expectations of both men and women The article essentially concludes that men are competitive. Maybe I missed something in the article. Which citation really spoke to you and confirmed this consensus?
imartin2k 9y ago
" It's because he's just another brogrammer...." After having read two lengthy pieces about him and his case, I think you are showing a lack of empathy and willingness to put yourself into some other person's shoes. You might disagree with his actions and world view. But you should maybe not be so quick with your labeling. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-damore-google-memo-interview-autism-regrets https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-dam... http://quillette.com/2018/01/05/empathy-gap-tech-interview-software-engineer/ http://quillette.com/2018/01/05/empathy-gap-tech-interview-s...
- lukev 9y ago
  What am I supposed to have empathy for? That he was paid a six figure salary, part of which required him to sit through a few hours of sensitivity training? And if we're worried about empathy, why don't we stop and think for a while about the people affected negatively by his memo? Or do you mean the autism excuse (which is from the Guardian journalist, btw, not Damore himself?) I know lots of people on the autism spectrum who are not sexist, or who at least have the intelligence not to send out a memo to the whole company on a nuanced, controversial social topic
  - imartin2k 9y ago
    Read. If you then still think it is ok to just put a degrading label on him, then you are part of the big problem we have in our heated debates nowadays. Try be the solution and don't see the world in black or white/good or bad. "And if we're worried about empathy, why don't we stop and think for a while about the people affected negatively by his memo?" I do. It's you who falsely assumes one can only do one thing.
  - mbrumlow 9y ago
    When you read something you don't agree with it is your choice to decide how it affects you. So please don't start this nonsense that words make a unsafe environment. That being said nobody had a negative reaction until vox leaked it. It had been available for months. I will also note it seemed to be those who have more tweets than minutes they have been alive that got the most upset about this memo. I was really disappointed in the response by Google engineers. To this day I have yet to see a proper rebuttal that did not go out of it's way to misrepresent the original memo. That is what makes me sad. That to this day people still quote things that were not in or even eluded to in the paper.
verroq 9y ago
There is a difference between women are on average less capable (or what your interpretation seems to imply - women programmers are worse than men) and what is written which are there may be less qualified female candidates due to biological differences. The latter is an obvious statement however people seems keen to deliberately misinterpret it to fuel their rightous outrage. I’ll use high jump as an example. Suppose I only hire high jumpers who can leap over X meters. I find that I naturally hire less women because women on average can’t jump as high as men. The women who can are obviously as qualified as men. Now I make the statement that due to biological differences this may explain the hiring disparity, rather than discrimination.
- lukev 9y ago
  Two things: 1. Saying that women are "on average" worse programmers is exactly why people are upset with him. He doesn't need to be some kind of insane absolutist in order for what he said to be very problematic. 2. Even if there are statistically significant sex differences with regard to programming ability and inclination, there are also historical and sociological factors that are working against women in tech. Damore's memo was explicitly a negative reaction against some of the programs designed to counteract these systemic issues. As such, even if he were 100% right about the sexual dimorphism (which he isn't, see my other post in this thread), using that as an argument against trying to solve the sociological problems is not only logically unsound, but exhibits bad faith and bad motivations.
  - verroq 9y ago
    1. Except he never even said women on average are worse. Secondly people being upset is not an argument against the truthiness of statement, no matter how problematic. 2. “How dare he question the effectiveness of affirmative action” is also not an argument.
    - lukev 9y ago
      > Except he never even said women on average are worse. That is literally the whole point of his memo, that women have a different (i.e, worse, in this context) statistical distribution of ability and inclination to the tech field. > “How dare he question the effectiveness of affirmative action” is also not an argument. Sure it is. His argument is structured as follows: 1. Negative effect Q is caused by both A and B. 2. We can't do anything about A. 3. Therefore we shouldn't do anything about B. That's just bad reasoning.
lilycaliber 9y ago
maybe gender non confused women are simply NOT INTERESTED in the current realm of the engineering tech world? Of course I have NO expertise in this matter whatsoever as a NON DEGREED NON GENDER CONFLICTED HIGH IQ FEMALE. I wonder how many of these comments here are posted by the Googly butted employees of Googly butt INC. ON COMPANY TIME?!!! Whatever it is you THINK Google is supposed to provide youre NOT providing it now, ARE YOU? SMH glad I left the corpo tech world and LEARNED ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD! Goats and ducks and earth itself doesnt give a good diddly squat about "how you identify sexually or otherwise!" Maybe its already "correcting" the warped offspring and you are merely RESPONDING to natural biological evolutionary mandates? By insisting that you are "non binary"? LOL Ma Natures got the last laugh on all of you pretending to be so freaking intelligent and "open minded"! LOL LOL Betcha there arent any white papers allowed on THAT concept! Glad and grateful I escaped it all long before this ridiculous obsession with "identity" became the humanity and technology destroying epidemic it is now. You CLAIM to be leading edge thinkers and creators and developers! WTF are you socially challenged misfits "creating" here? You claim to be creating better intelligence artificially. CREATORS HEAL THYSELVES OR GET OUTTA THE KITCHEN! Humanity and life itself hasn't any time or energy left to waste on this incredible amount of navel inspecting!!! WE ARE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS!! DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO DRIVE IT YET??? SHUT UP ABOUT HOW YOU "IDENTIFY" AND DO YOU F*N JOBS! [ there was a time when this was a common declaration among the most productive workplaces. AND IT WORKED! ] you have literally destroyed the future for us ALL with your ARGUING for your OWN limitations!
- dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
  Girl, I'm glad you're speaking out, but learn about paragraphs, and use them.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Uhhrrr 9y ago
> proposing that women are on average less biologically capable of programming is exactly what he's saying. No, he's saying that they also might be less interested, for biological reasons. I recommend actually reading the memo (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...): "Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men."
- lurr 9y ago
  > I recommend actually reading the memo I recommend you start realizing that people can read something and interpret it in vastly different ways. Of course then you might have a revelation about this whole thing.
  - Uhhrrr 9y ago
    I recognize that, but it was evident that GP didn't read it in the first place.
BonesJustice 9y ago
> Sociological factors that some companies are attempting to counter, which is what Damore didn't like, which is why he issued his complain-y memo to start with. That isn't my interpretation at all. His entire point was that Google's current strategy was ignoring the cultural and sociological factors that might be discouraging women from entering the field. Rather than simply giving women preferential treatment during the hiring process, and going out of the way to specifically hire women, he argued that we should be spending more time identifying why women aren't naturally drawn to the field (or why more women later choose to leave the field). Fix that problem first, or the women that get hired will eventually leave, because we haven't done enough to consider why they don't feel welcome. He never said that women are unfit to be engineers. He argued (clumsily, I admit) that we've created an environment that favors the preferences and strengths of men over those of women. If we want to see more women thrive in tech, start by changing the culture. I think that most of the outrage over Damore's memo can be chalked up to poor communication on his part. He lays out evidence, but he never explicitly states his argument. It's like he assumed there was a single, obvious conclusion that readers would arrive at. Some of us got the message, but apparently a whole lot more didn't. The outcome is almost perfect in its irony: he cites a greater emphasis on empathy as a way of making the engineering field more hospitable to women, but he fails miserably at using empathy to evaluate how people will interpret his own words.
DuskStar 9y ago
The best response to this that I've read, at least in my opinion, was SSC's "Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences"[0]. The key point is that differences between the genders do exist, though they tend to be differences in interest rather than capability. And even small differences in interest can cascade through the selection effects of our educational systems. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...
- dqv 9y ago
  The article has Professor Grant himself (the guy who is cited in all of these discussions) rebutting what Scott wrote in the blog post. It's well worth the read.
  - DuskStar 9y ago
    Which article? Not the feature from TC, I'd presume. If there's a good rebuttal to what Scott wrote out there, I'd love to read it! There's Grant's response added by Scott to the comments [0], but I don't think that really qualifies as a rebuttal. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/#comment-533527 http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...
    - dqv 9y ago
      I used poor wording - it's just Grant's response, not a rebuttal. I appreciated that Scott included it.
fastball 9y ago
You're completely ignoring the "preferences" part of that statement though. It's unfortunate that he threw the "abilities" bit in there as well, but when reading in the context of the rest of the memo, I think it's fair to say he Damore believes the distributions differ due to "preference factors", much more than he believes its due to "ability factors". And a very strong case can be made that women make different life choices which result in generally different outcomes in those areas.
lurr 9y ago
> It's because he's just another brogrammer ugh.

by lukev 9y ago

Alex3917 9y ago

> the consensus is that biological sex differences are not that big of an effect, certainly not enough to explain the gender disparity in tech. Whether sex differences explain the gender disparity in tech isn't even the kind of question that cog dev folks ask.

DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
> You're making stuff up. Hey, let's keep things civil. Please consider Hanlon's Razor in this case. How about something like, "I don't think you're correct about the consensus. Citations please?"
- Alex3917 9y ago
  Fair, edited my comment.
lukev 9y ago
Except it is. Damore himself cites a study by David Schmitt at Bradley University, indicating that women had certain personality traits across cultures. What did Shmitt have to say about Damore, when interviewed? > “It is unclear to me that this sex difference would play a role in success within the Google workplace (in particular, not being able to handle stresses of leadership in the workplace. That’s a huge stretch to me.)” For more, check out the citations on this article: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/16/16153740/tech-diversity-problem-science-history-explainer-inequality https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/16/16153740/tech-diversity-p... Finally, even if the facts were true that women on averaged perform worse in tech, how do you want to use that information? Cancel all the sensitivity programs designed to solve other very real problems in tech? Or are you saying not only that biology "plays a role", but that _nothing else does_ so we should just completely ignore this as an issue?
- Alex3917 9y ago
  > It is unclear to me that this sex difference would play a role in success within the Google workplace (in particular, not being able to handle stresses of leadership in the workplace. That’s a huge stretch to me.) In other words, "that's not the kind of question we ask." Also I looked at the citations, neither of the metastudies looks at differences in sensory perception which imho are the most interesting of the sex differences. But even ignoring that, looking at the statistical significance of certain population traits doesn't tell you anything about their clinical significance. E.g. if you look at two groups of 100 people and one group is 100% alive and the other group is 99% alive, there isn't a significant effect size, but there is a big difference to that one person.

xeeeeeeeeeeenu 9y ago

>Scientists who study this stuff (including those cited by Damore) can and do talk about it, and the consensus is that biological sex differences are not that big of an effect, certainly not enough to explain the gender disparity in tech. What effects there may be are absolutely dominated by sociological factors. [citation needed]

lukev 9y ago
You probably won't like the tone of this article, but I think you'll find it difficult to argue with it's citation list: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/16/16153740/tech-diversity-problem-science-history-explainer-inequality https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/16/16153740/tech-diversity-p...
- dqv 9y ago
  Ok, I'm not trying to be snarky, but journalists aren't scientists. The article cites statistics that re-confirm what we already knew - that women are highly under-represented. But what seems to be missing (and what I had hoped for) is research showing that "the consensus is that biological sex differences are not that big of an effect, certainly not enough to explain the gender disparity in tech." I feel like the article should be overflowing with references to this if it's a consensus. It turns out that even this article admits that > there’s very little scientists know for certain about which behaviors are due to biology, and which are because of society’s expectations of both men and women The article essentially concludes that men are competitive. Maybe I missed something in the article. Which citation really spoke to you and confirmed this consensus?

imartin2k 9y ago

" It's because he's just another brogrammer...." After having read two lengthy pieces about him and his case, I think you are showing a lack of empathy and willingness to put yourself into some other person's shoes. You might disagree with his actions and world view. But you should maybe not be so quick with your labeling. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-damore-google-memo-interview-autism-regrets https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-dam... http://quillette.com/2018/01/05/empathy-gap-tech-interview-software-engineer/ http://quillette.com/2018/01/05/empathy-gap-tech-interview-s...

lukev 9y ago
What am I supposed to have empathy for? That he was paid a six figure salary, part of which required him to sit through a few hours of sensitivity training? And if we're worried about empathy, why don't we stop and think for a while about the people affected negatively by his memo? Or do you mean the autism excuse (which is from the Guardian journalist, btw, not Damore himself?) I know lots of people on the autism spectrum who are not sexist, or who at least have the intelligence not to send out a memo to the whole company on a nuanced, controversial social topic
- imartin2k 9y ago
  Read. If you then still think it is ok to just put a degrading label on him, then you are part of the big problem we have in our heated debates nowadays. Try be the solution and don't see the world in black or white/good or bad. "And if we're worried about empathy, why don't we stop and think for a while about the people affected negatively by his memo?" I do. It's you who falsely assumes one can only do one thing.
- mbrumlow 9y ago
  When you read something you don't agree with it is your choice to decide how it affects you. So please don't start this nonsense that words make a unsafe environment. That being said nobody had a negative reaction until vox leaked it. It had been available for months. I will also note it seemed to be those who have more tweets than minutes they have been alive that got the most upset about this memo. I was really disappointed in the response by Google engineers. To this day I have yet to see a proper rebuttal that did not go out of it's way to misrepresent the original memo. That is what makes me sad. That to this day people still quote things that were not in or even eluded to in the paper.

verroq 9y ago

There is a difference between women are on average less capable (or what your interpretation seems to imply - women programmers are worse than men) and what is written which are there may be less qualified female candidates due to biological differences. The latter is an obvious statement however people seems keen to deliberately misinterpret it to fuel their rightous outrage. I’ll use high jump as an example. Suppose I only hire high jumpers who can leap over X meters. I find that I naturally hire less women because women on average can’t jump as high as men. The women who can are obviously as qualified as men. Now I make the statement that due to biological differences this may explain the hiring disparity, rather than discrimination.

lukev 9y ago
Two things: 1. Saying that women are "on average" worse programmers is exactly why people are upset with him. He doesn't need to be some kind of insane absolutist in order for what he said to be very problematic. 2. Even if there are statistically significant sex differences with regard to programming ability and inclination, there are also historical and sociological factors that are working against women in tech. Damore's memo was explicitly a negative reaction against some of the programs designed to counteract these systemic issues. As such, even if he were 100% right about the sexual dimorphism (which he isn't, see my other post in this thread), using that as an argument against trying to solve the sociological problems is not only logically unsound, but exhibits bad faith and bad motivations.
- verroq 9y ago
  1. Except he never even said women on average are worse. Secondly people being upset is not an argument against the truthiness of statement, no matter how problematic. 2. “How dare he question the effectiveness of affirmative action” is also not an argument.
  - lukev 9y ago
    > Except he never even said women on average are worse. That is literally the whole point of his memo, that women have a different (i.e, worse, in this context) statistical distribution of ability and inclination to the tech field. > “How dare he question the effectiveness of affirmative action” is also not an argument. Sure it is. His argument is structured as follows: 1. Negative effect Q is caused by both A and B. 2. We can't do anything about A. 3. Therefore we shouldn't do anything about B. That's just bad reasoning.

lilycaliber 9y ago

maybe gender non confused women are simply NOT INTERESTED in the current realm of the engineering tech world? Of course I have NO expertise in this matter whatsoever as a NON DEGREED NON GENDER CONFLICTED HIGH IQ FEMALE. I wonder how many of these comments here are posted by the Googly butted employees of Googly butt INC. ON COMPANY TIME?!!! Whatever it is you THINK Google is supposed to provide youre NOT providing it now, ARE YOU? SMH glad I left the corpo tech world and LEARNED ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD! Goats and ducks and earth itself doesnt give a good diddly squat about "how you identify sexually or otherwise!" Maybe its already "correcting" the warped offspring and you are merely RESPONDING to natural biological evolutionary mandates? By insisting that you are "non binary"? LOL Ma Natures got the last laugh on all of you pretending to be so freaking intelligent and "open minded"! LOL LOL Betcha there arent any white papers allowed on THAT concept! Glad and grateful I escaped it all long before this ridiculous obsession with "identity" became the humanity and technology destroying epidemic it is now. You CLAIM to be leading edge thinkers and creators and developers! WTF are you socially challenged misfits "creating" here? You claim to be creating better intelligence artificially. CREATORS HEAL THYSELVES OR GET OUTTA THE KITCHEN! Humanity and life itself hasn't any time or energy left to waste on this incredible amount of navel inspecting!!! WE ARE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS!! DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO DRIVE IT YET??? SHUT UP ABOUT HOW YOU "IDENTIFY" AND DO YOU F*N JOBS! [ there was a time when this was a common declaration among the most productive workplaces. AND IT WORKED! ] you have literally destroyed the future for us ALL with your ARGUING for your OWN limitations!

dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
Girl, I'm glad you're speaking out, but learn about paragraphs, and use them.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Uhhrrr 9y ago

> proposing that women are on average less biologically capable of programming is exactly what he's saying. No, he's saying that they also might be less interested, for biological reasons. I recommend actually reading the memo (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...): "Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men."

lurr 9y ago
> I recommend actually reading the memo I recommend you start realizing that people can read something and interpret it in vastly different ways. Of course then you might have a revelation about this whole thing.
- Uhhrrr 9y ago
  I recognize that, but it was evident that GP didn't read it in the first place.

BonesJustice 9y ago

> Sociological factors that some companies are attempting to counter, which is what Damore didn't like, which is why he issued his complain-y memo to start with. That isn't my interpretation at all. His entire point was that Google's current strategy was ignoring the cultural and sociological factors that might be discouraging women from entering the field. Rather than simply giving women preferential treatment during the hiring process, and going out of the way to specifically hire women, he argued that we should be spending more time identifying why women aren't naturally drawn to the field (or why more women later choose to leave the field). Fix that problem first, or the women that get hired will eventually leave, because we haven't done enough to consider why they don't feel welcome. He never said that women are unfit to be engineers. He argued (clumsily, I admit) that we've created an environment that favors the preferences and strengths of men over those of women. If we want to see more women thrive in tech, start by changing the culture. I think that most of the outrage over Damore's memo can be chalked up to poor communication on his part. He lays out evidence, but he never explicitly states his argument. It's like he assumed there was a single, obvious conclusion that readers would arrive at. Some of us got the message, but apparently a whole lot more didn't. The outcome is almost perfect in its irony: he cites a greater emphasis on empathy as a way of making the engineering field more hospitable to women, but he fails miserably at using empathy to evaluate how people will interpret his own words.

DuskStar 9y ago

The best response to this that I've read, at least in my opinion, was SSC's "Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences"[0]. The key point is that differences between the genders do exist, though they tend to be differences in interest rather than capability. And even small differences in interest can cascade through the selection effects of our educational systems. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

dqv 9y ago
The article has Professor Grant himself (the guy who is cited in all of these discussions) rebutting what Scott wrote in the blog post. It's well worth the read.
- DuskStar 9y ago
  Which article? Not the feature from TC, I'd presume. If there's a good rebuttal to what Scott wrote out there, I'd love to read it! There's Grant's response added by Scott to the comments [0], but I don't think that really qualifies as a rebuttal. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/#comment-533527 http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...
  - dqv 9y ago
    I used poor wording - it's just Grant's response, not a rebuttal. I appreciated that Scott included it.

fastball 9y ago

You're completely ignoring the "preferences" part of that statement though. It's unfortunate that he threw the "abilities" bit in there as well, but when reading in the context of the rest of the memo, I think it's fair to say he Damore believes the distributions differ due to "preference factors", much more than he believes its due to "ability factors". And a very strong case can be made that women make different life choices which result in generally different outcomes in those areas.

lurr 9y ago

> It's because he's just another brogrammer ugh.