11 ms·

> 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 bel

> 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.

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.