15 ms·

> But to the extent that it attempted to organize around changes to Google management that might (might) themselves violate EEO laws (for instance, any kind of

by darawk 9y ago

> But to the extent that it attempted to organize around changes to Google management that might (might) themselves violate EEO laws (for instance, any kind of official recognition that men are better suited to software development at Google than women), they were not. Was he trying to do that, though? As I understand it, he was protesting policies that sought to actively promote diversity. EEO laws require no such active promotion, afaik. He fell all over himself to be clear that he was not saying that Google should prefer hiring men, or that they should restrict women to specific roles within the company. He was questioning Google's active efforts to specifically recruit women above the background level that would otherwise apply. Whether or not this is a good idea is certainly up for debate, but it does not, to my knowledge, violate EEO laws to merely not actively and specifically target women for recruitment. > who believes strongly in the absolute innate equivalence in aptitude for our profession between men and women Curious, why do you believe in that? Have you evaluated the evidence and come to that conclusion, or is it a priori for you?

georgemcbay 9y ago
> Curious, why do you believe in that? Have you evaluated the evidence and come to that conclusion, or is it a priori for you? Curious why you question his belief? All of the half-way reputable studies I've ever heard of have either concluded that there is no difference in male/female intelligence or that there are small differences in certain silos, with men scoring slightly higher on average in visuospatial while women score slightly higher on average in verbal. Even if you accept the latter as fact (which there is no clear cut evidence-based reason for doing so, if you look at the studies in aggregate) it says basically nothing about suitability to "our profession" as both of those skills are important. Given the choice between someone with higher than average overall IQ and outstanding visuospatial skills and someone with higher than average overall IQ and outstanding verbal skills, I'd generally prefer the latter as a colleague.
- darawk 9y ago
  http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-mostly-not-due-to-offensive-attitudes/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-m... My views are in part informed by this essay. It mostly deals with issues of interest, rather than ability, but the cumulative effect of interest divergence culminates in aptitude divergence. That being said, i'm open to hearing contrary evidence. To the extent that i've read about it, there are non-trivial difference and they are large enough to at least partially explain some of the discrepancy in jobs like software engineering.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    This is a perennial debate on HN. Since you asked specifically for me to expand on my own beliefs, my request to you would be to use the search bar at the bottom of the page and find one of the zillion threads I've stated at length my beliefs about this topic on. Wow, that was a bad sentence. Either way though: I'd rather keep on the topic of labor law here.
- IWeldMelons 9y ago
  It is still unclear though, why a belief in lower or higher aptitude of a particular group (as a whole) for a some specific type of activity should lead to any kind of discrimination. I realize, it often does, but attempt to silence the research and potentially, the truth, for some political reason does not sound good.
  - throwaway5752 9y ago
    Nobody is silencing any research, unless you think broadly circulating a memo at a tech company constitutes "research". It is legal to research pornography, but try to view it at a lot of companies in the office. Context is important. He sent it out at work, not to arxiv.org.
    - gowld 9y ago
      It's not silencing research, but silencing talking about research is a chilling effect. This research isn't off-topic pornography, it was research specifically on the topic of who works in the office.
      - acdha 9y ago
        But it wasn’t research. It was a sloppy regurgitation of some cherrypicked sources which made some sweeping claims, and oh by the way management was wrong and should let him tell them how to do it. Consider the alternative: say his goal had actually been to learn what most scientists believe or to see how it applied to Google. That would be things like a representative literature survey, lots of questions about how you could measure effects, what the implications those effects would have, etc. Rather than just assuming current staffing was the optimal outcome, you’d ask how you’d even measure such a thing, etc. Remember, before he joined Google he has experience working in a real research lab. There’s no way he doesn’t know what scientific discussion looks like – it just wasn’t as important as trying to portray his personal political beliefs as objective truth.
        fjsolwmv 9y ago
- manfredo 9y ago
  The memo did not claim that women were less intelligent. It claimed that women _prefer_ to work in fields other than tech. This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. It also claimed higher variance, but not overall differences. In other words that there are more men on both sides of the extreme.
  - bduerst 9y ago
    >This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. Wrong. The memo is poorly worded, but it does make the leap from just preferences to abilities in this sentence, despite not having evidence for the latter: >>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.
    - manfredo 9y ago
      This is exactly in line with what I wrote. This quote talks about distribution. Not averages, which was the parent comment's claim.
      - bduerst 9y ago
        The quote talks about abilities, which you said the memo did not say anything about. Damore was positing that both women's preferences and abilities is why you see less women in tech and leadership positions.
        manfredo 9y ago
        From my original comment in this chain: > ...also claimed higher variance, but not overall differences. In other words that there are more men on both sides of the extreme. This is in reference to what the memo says about abilities. The memo does claim higher or lower overall averages, too, but those are in terms of preferences. Let me lay this out point by point if I phrased this poorly before: * The memo claims that women and men have different averages in preferences. * That men and women have different distributions of abilities. * The memo does not claim that there are different average of abilities. Point #3 is what the parent comment claimed, among other things, and that is wrong.
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  Damore NEVER said that women had lower IQ than men. That wasn't the point of his manifesto, it was saying that the reason why you can't get 50/50 representation the way that Google wants to, because the nature of software development as it's done today makes it less attractive, on average, to women. He even suggested ways to change how software development jobs are done to make it more attractive to women in general.
fra 9y ago
"... absolute innate equivalence ..." As was already stated in this thread, this is the null hypothesis. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397321
- darawk 9y ago
  The comment you linked states the opposite.
  - ameister14 9y ago
    I think you may have misread it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- knorker 9y ago
  It's one thing to assume the null hypothesis. Quite another to discard ANY experience or data because it violates the null hypothesis. Damore certainly cited many studies, and while there's valid criticism of their validity, "they disagree with the null hypothesis, ergo they are false" is not right. Nor is "I have not read them, therefore the null hypothesis is right".
  - xenadu02 9y ago
    > Damore certainly cited many studies, He did no such thing. Please stop spreading misinformation. He linked to blogs and magazine articles then people started calling his footnotes “research”. The one legit study he linked came to the opposite conclusion of what he claimed. I suggest you go read his links for yourself and consider the sources. It might be illuminating, unless you are already biased in favor of the argument he made.
    - knorker 9y ago
      Just because you don't like his citations doesn't make you right in saying he didn't have them. But first a side-note: Stop changing the subject. I was saying the null hypothesis is irrelevant here. I'm saying don't discard new evidence because it goes against the null hypothesis. A few comments up (and the answer to "why") was said "[I] strongly believe [in the null hypothesis]", which to me is very strange. How can you "strongly believe" in a null hypothesis? I didn't like his references (and stop attacking me, and implying my position), in that you can't just cherry-pick a study you like and call it fact (though doesn't make it wrong. Just unproven). Everyone does this. It doesn't make it right, but stones and glass houses. To understand what you consider legit studies, I randomly clicked on three of his links. At least two of them must not qualify as legit study, so could you explain why you say two or three of these are "blogs and magazines"? I guess you qualify the journal "Science" as unscientific and merely a magazine? So that's one. Mind you, it'd be a real coincidence if the one supposedly legit study he referenced just happened to be in this list of three: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.... http://science.sciencemag.org/content/310/5749/819 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/310/5749/819 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763412001510?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341...
tptacek 9y ago
He was terminated at Google's discretion under at-will employment, the same standard that might allow you to be fired for coming to work with blue hair. He sought relief under an exception to at-will, the NLRA, which protects concerted action to improve working conditions. The NLRB determined that because the substance of his action involved requests that Google might reasonably determine would be problematic under EEO law, that whether or not Damore's actions were unlawful, Google was within its rights as a US employer to terminate him. It might help to pivot away from EEO law and to some other regulatory regime we work under. For instance, you could attempt to organize around reworking the way your company complies with the HITECH laws. What you'd be doing would certainly not be unlawful! Nevertheless, despite that fact and the fact that the NLRA generally protects employee organization, the fact that your employer has a legal obligation to comply with HITECH would mean that the NLRB gives them substantial extra deference in whether or not they can fire you for doing that. On the other hand, if you were to organize around, I don't know, closed-door offices instead of open-offices, no such extra deference would apply. (Re: my beliefs: I provided them as a cards-on-the-table disclaimer, not an invitation to litigate them; they're the least interesting part of this story).
- leereeves 9y ago
  IMHO, the Advice Memo's conclusion is summarized by this sentence: > Damore's statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution — were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. I find this disturbing. I don't know whether Damore's assertions are scientifically accurate, but the NLRB appears to be saying that it doesn't matter. Stating an unpleasant truth would constitute discrimination "notwithstanding scientific references and analysis".
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    Why is this chilling? There are many much-less-disputed things which are obviously factually true but which, nonetheless, could put you on the hook for harassment depending on how, why, and how often you say them. For example, suppose I have a co-worker who is an ardent believer in the cause of the southern states during the US Civil War. It is factually and indisputably true that the southern states lost that war, and were subjected to a humiliating period of military occupation afterward. If I were to, say, constantly bring it up and rub it in my co-worker's face, my co-worker could certainly go to HR and claim I was committing harassment.

by darawk 9y ago

georgemcbay 9y ago

> Curious, why do you believe in that? Have you evaluated the evidence and come to that conclusion, or is it a priori for you? Curious why you question his belief? All of the half-way reputable studies I've ever heard of have either concluded that there is no difference in male/female intelligence or that there are small differences in certain silos, with men scoring slightly higher on average in visuospatial while women score slightly higher on average in verbal. Even if you accept the latter as fact (which there is no clear cut evidence-based reason for doing so, if you look at the studies in aggregate) it says basically nothing about suitability to "our profession" as both of those skills are important. Given the choice between someone with higher than average overall IQ and outstanding visuospatial skills and someone with higher than average overall IQ and outstanding verbal skills, I'd generally prefer the latter as a colleague.

darawk 9y ago
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-mostly-not-due-to-offensive-attitudes/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-m... My views are in part informed by this essay. It mostly deals with issues of interest, rather than ability, but the cumulative effect of interest divergence culminates in aptitude divergence. That being said, i'm open to hearing contrary evidence. To the extent that i've read about it, there are non-trivial difference and they are large enough to at least partially explain some of the discrepancy in jobs like software engineering.
- tptacek 9y ago
  This is a perennial debate on HN. Since you asked specifically for me to expand on my own beliefs, my request to you would be to use the search bar at the bottom of the page and find one of the zillion threads I've stated at length my beliefs about this topic on. Wow, that was a bad sentence. Either way though: I'd rather keep on the topic of labor law here.
IWeldMelons 9y ago
It is still unclear though, why a belief in lower or higher aptitude of a particular group (as a whole) for a some specific type of activity should lead to any kind of discrimination. I realize, it often does, but attempt to silence the research and potentially, the truth, for some political reason does not sound good.
- throwaway5752 9y ago
  Nobody is silencing any research, unless you think broadly circulating a memo at a tech company constitutes "research". It is legal to research pornography, but try to view it at a lot of companies in the office. Context is important. He sent it out at work, not to arxiv.org.
  - gowld 9y ago
    It's not silencing research, but silencing talking about research is a chilling effect. This research isn't off-topic pornography, it was research specifically on the topic of who works in the office.
    - acdha 9y ago
      But it wasn’t research. It was a sloppy regurgitation of some cherrypicked sources which made some sweeping claims, and oh by the way management was wrong and should let him tell them how to do it. Consider the alternative: say his goal had actually been to learn what most scientists believe or to see how it applied to Google. That would be things like a representative literature survey, lots of questions about how you could measure effects, what the implications those effects would have, etc. Rather than just assuming current staffing was the optimal outcome, you’d ask how you’d even measure such a thing, etc. Remember, before he joined Google he has experience working in a real research lab. There’s no way he doesn’t know what scientific discussion looks like – it just wasn’t as important as trying to portray his personal political beliefs as objective truth.
      - fjsolwmv 9y ago
manfredo 9y ago
The memo did not claim that women were less intelligent. It claimed that women _prefer_ to work in fields other than tech. This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. It also claimed higher variance, but not overall differences. In other words that there are more men on both sides of the extreme.
- bduerst 9y ago
  >This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. Wrong. The memo is poorly worded, but it does make the leap from just preferences to abilities in this sentence, despite not having evidence for the latter: >>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.
  - manfredo 9y ago
    This is exactly in line with what I wrote. This quote talks about distribution. Not averages, which was the parent comment's claim.
    - bduerst 9y ago
      The quote talks about abilities, which you said the memo did not say anything about. Damore was positing that both women's preferences and abilities is why you see less women in tech and leadership positions.
      - manfredo 9y ago
        From my original comment in this chain: > ...also claimed higher variance, but not overall differences. In other words that there are more men on both sides of the extreme. This is in reference to what the memo says about abilities. The memo does claim higher or lower overall averages, too, but those are in terms of preferences. Let me lay this out point by point if I phrased this poorly before: * The memo claims that women and men have different averages in preferences. * That men and women have different distributions of abilities. * The memo does not claim that there are different average of abilities. Point #3 is what the parent comment claimed, among other things, and that is wrong.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
Damore NEVER said that women had lower IQ than men. That wasn't the point of his manifesto, it was saying that the reason why you can't get 50/50 representation the way that Google wants to, because the nature of software development as it's done today makes it less attractive, on average, to women. He even suggested ways to change how software development jobs are done to make it more attractive to women in general.

fra 9y ago

"... absolute innate equivalence ..." As was already stated in this thread, this is the null hypothesis. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397321

darawk 9y ago
The comment you linked states the opposite.
- ameister14 9y ago
  I think you may have misread it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
knorker 9y ago
It's one thing to assume the null hypothesis. Quite another to discard ANY experience or data because it violates the null hypothesis. Damore certainly cited many studies, and while there's valid criticism of their validity, "they disagree with the null hypothesis, ergo they are false" is not right. Nor is "I have not read them, therefore the null hypothesis is right".
- xenadu02 9y ago
  > Damore certainly cited many studies, He did no such thing. Please stop spreading misinformation. He linked to blogs and magazine articles then people started calling his footnotes “research”. The one legit study he linked came to the opposite conclusion of what he claimed. I suggest you go read his links for yourself and consider the sources. It might be illuminating, unless you are already biased in favor of the argument he made.
  - knorker 9y ago
    Just because you don't like his citations doesn't make you right in saying he didn't have them. But first a side-note: Stop changing the subject. I was saying the null hypothesis is irrelevant here. I'm saying don't discard new evidence because it goes against the null hypothesis. A few comments up (and the answer to "why") was said "[I] strongly believe [in the null hypothesis]", which to me is very strange. How can you "strongly believe" in a null hypothesis? I didn't like his references (and stop attacking me, and implying my position), in that you can't just cherry-pick a study you like and call it fact (though doesn't make it wrong. Just unproven). Everyone does this. It doesn't make it right, but stones and glass houses. To understand what you consider legit studies, I randomly clicked on three of his links. At least two of them must not qualify as legit study, so could you explain why you say two or three of these are "blogs and magazines"? I guess you qualify the journal "Science" as unscientific and merely a magazine? So that's one. Mind you, it'd be a real coincidence if the one supposedly legit study he referenced just happened to be in this list of three: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.... http://science.sciencemag.org/content/310/5749/819 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/310/5749/819 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763412001510?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341...

tptacek 9y ago

He was terminated at Google's discretion under at-will employment, the same standard that might allow you to be fired for coming to work with blue hair. He sought relief under an exception to at-will, the NLRA, which protects concerted action to improve working conditions. The NLRB determined that because the substance of his action involved requests that Google might reasonably determine would be problematic under EEO law, that whether or not Damore's actions were unlawful, Google was within its rights as a US employer to terminate him. It might help to pivot away from EEO law and to some other regulatory regime we work under. For instance, you could attempt to organize around reworking the way your company complies with the HITECH laws. What you'd be doing would certainly not be unlawful! Nevertheless, despite that fact and the fact that the NLRA generally protects employee organization, the fact that your employer has a legal obligation to comply with HITECH would mean that the NLRB gives them substantial extra deference in whether or not they can fire you for doing that. On the other hand, if you were to organize around, I don't know, closed-door offices instead of open-offices, no such extra deference would apply. (Re: my beliefs: I provided them as a cards-on-the-table disclaimer, not an invitation to litigate them; they're the least interesting part of this story).

leereeves 9y ago
IMHO, the Advice Memo's conclusion is summarized by this sentence: > Damore's statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution — were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. I find this disturbing. I don't know whether Damore's assertions are scientifically accurate, but the NLRB appears to be saying that it doesn't matter. Stating an unpleasant truth would constitute discrimination "notwithstanding scientific references and analysis".
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  Why is this chilling? There are many much-less-disputed things which are obviously factually true but which, nonetheless, could put you on the hook for harassment depending on how, why, and how often you say them. For example, suppose I have a co-worker who is an ardent believer in the cause of the southern states during the US Civil War. It is factually and indisputably true that the southern states lost that war, and were subjected to a humiliating period of military occupation afterward. If I were to, say, constantly bring it up and rub it in my co-worker's face, my co-worker could certainly go to HR and claim I was committing harassment.