5 ms·

There are more male programmers than female. Please explain how invoking genetic differences explanations is pseudo scientific, whereas invoking systematic disc

There are more male programmers than female. Please explain how invoking genetic differences explanations is pseudo scientific, whereas invoking systematic discrimination explanations is not pseudo-scientific. Consider: There are more male rapists than female rapists. Is this because female rapists are systematically discriminated against? Does our society shamefully teach children that raping is only for boys? Or are males simply genetically more predisposed to rape relative to females? If males are genetically more likely to rape, should we lock them all up at birth? I guess not?

fjsolwmv 9y ago
Tangent, but men and women are heterosexually assaulted at similar rates, it's just that men on average are better able to resist due to strength advantages,and have more of a stigma against reporting. And not as much in the workplace since on average men have more positions of power in workplaces
- reader5000 9y ago
  I'm not sure about that, for instance the below link claims 91% of victims of sexual assault are female. https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc...
rayiner 9y ago
The difference is that we have a theory of causation and evidence that the causal factors exist. We can point to studies showing that identical resumes with female names are half as likely to get called back, and we have a workable theory of how things like that affect gender ratio. These theories are backed by a real-world social experiment: when we eliminated many explicit forms of discrimination that existed in past decades, we saw the proportion of women rise rapidly in many formerly male dominated professions. That gives us a rich source of empirical evidence to draw from. (E.g. we saw in law and medicine that affirmative action led to self-perpetuating long term changes in gender ratio; once going into a law career wasn’t signing up for a life of being an extreme minority, womens’ representation shot way up). With the biological explanation, we have evidence of certain gender differences, and we have evidence of disparities in representation, but we have no theory of how the two are causally linked. That’s the hallmark of pseudo-science. Say we know that women are more cooperative than men. What does that mean for programming? Is programming inherently less cooperative than fields like accounting where there are more women than men? What is the sensitivity of programming choice to differences in “cooperativeness?” The biggest confounder is that while we have scientfic studies associating genders with traits, we have nothing linking traits with professions. That’s where Damore’s memo goes off the rails into handwaving and begging the question: he repeatedly assumes that because men are over represented in programming, that programming is necessarily characterized by male traits. (E.g. thing oriented versus people oriented: why does Goldman Sachs have more women creating abstract financial instruments than many tech companies have creating social apps?)
- reader5000 9y ago
  Yes, when affirmative action becomes status quo, you get a stable population of whoever you are affirming into the profession. However, that is not removing an explicit form of discrimination but rather introducing one. Certainly, it is quite difficult to predict what psychological profile will succeed in a particular profession. But observing that males tend to succeed in programming is not begging the question whether males have relative genetic predisposition to programming (especially at the top 0.1% google level) but rather serves as evidence for the proposition. When we observe for instance that Asians are overrepresented as programmers, we don't use that to infer that non-Asians are discriminated against, but rather that for whatever reason Asians seem to possess some trait profile, possibly genetic, possibly not, advantageous for programming work. I'm not claiming that women were never discriminated against, just that it does not appear to be the best explanation for the observed large trends in gender ratios. For instance it doesn't explain male/female behavior differences in other arenas like criminality while genetic differences does.
  - elefanten 9y ago
    >Yes, when affirmative action becomes status quo, you get a stable population of whoever you are affirming into the profession. However, that is not removing an explicit form of discrimination but rather introducing one. This is super clearly not what GP was talking about. Removing implicit and explicit barriers to participation is not affirmative action. You are asserting the opposite of history here. >Certainly, it is quite difficult to predict what psychological profile will succeed in a particular profession. But observing that males tend to succeed in programming is not begging the question whether males have relative genetic predisposition to programming (especially at the top 0.1% google level) but rather serves as evidence for the proposition. It in no way serves as evidence for that proposition. By logic, quite the opposite is happening: you are proposing that as an explanation for the observation. There is no inherent connection between them. >When we observe for instance that Asians are overrepresented as programmers, we don't use that to infer that non-Asians are discriminated against, but rather that for whatever reason Asians seem to possess some trait profile, possibly genetic, possibly not, advantageous for programming work. Such a "trait profile" could include things like contemporary trends in national cultures, economic development policies, attitudes toward education, random vagaries of history and much much more. Anecdotally, I don't think I've ever heard someone, with a straight face, include genetics in such a discussion. But just as broad a spectrum of influences could be at play with the current gender balance of a given profession. And that's exactly the point: we don't have the clean data to make ANY strong claims about how much of the status quo was shaped by genetics. >I'm not claiming that women were never discriminated against, just that it does not appear to be the best explanation for the observed large trends in gender ratios. For instance it doesn't explain male/female behavior differences in other arenas like criminality while genetic differences does. It doesn't have to be the "best" or only explanation. But if there's good reason to believe that it's a factor, it should be taken into consideration and attempts should be made to solve it just like any other problem.
dbnoch 9y ago
I wont answer the Consider* part of what you said because it's a straw man argument and should be treated as such. There are more male programmers than female NOW* but that wasn't the case 50 years ago. Systematic discrimination has been proven as fact, with palpable examples (I shouldnt have to google this for you). The 'genetic differences' that this memo quoted have been proven wrong by science... making it psuedo-science.
- throwaway324823 9y ago
  Where are those genetic differences proven wrong, exactly? Because from what I've read, many scientists ranging from evolutionary to behavioral psychologists don't agree with your stance. For example: http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
tekproxy 9y ago
Bro, I'm going to have to give you a citation for wrongthink. Take your logic and rationality elsewhere, we're busy feeling things.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
Many jurisdictions define rape in a manner that requires that the person assaulted be penetrated. Under this definition, it is literally impossible for a woman to rape a man, except in cases where that definition would include anal penetration with an object other than a penis. In most jurisdictions, this would be defined as sodomy, not rape. I don't have stats on sexual assault handy. But I can tell you that, yes, our society does, in fact, teach children (and adults) that rape is something only boys do. This is a fact.
- rmc 9y ago
  I think you'll find that many feminists and activsts are not happy with most juristictions rape laws.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    I have zero idea why you feel the need to point that out to me.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pokemongoaway 9y ago
Yep they did the same to me... If they don't like your argument they just flag it as offensive. Admins are obviously on the side of oppression since I was prevented from posting for the last few hours and they threatened to ban me. It's like... Employee discusses theory and gets fired to silence the unwanted opinion. Then we discuss whether it should have happened or not - and we're at the point now of suppressing any opinions that strongly disagree with the firing. So not only aren't you allowed to support an idea - but you're not allowed to defend anyone who has supported it. This is why this discussion always comes back to free speech! Why can't we defend each other's rights to free speech? After participating in this thread it is clearer than ever.

fjsolwmv 9y ago

Tangent, but men and women are heterosexually assaulted at similar rates, it's just that men on average are better able to resist due to strength advantages,and have more of a stigma against reporting. And not as much in the workplace since on average men have more positions of power in workplaces

reader5000 9y ago
I'm not sure about that, for instance the below link claims 91% of victims of sexual assault are female. https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc...

rayiner 9y ago

The difference is that we have a theory of causation and evidence that the causal factors exist. We can point to studies showing that identical resumes with female names are half as likely to get called back, and we have a workable theory of how things like that affect gender ratio. These theories are backed by a real-world social experiment: when we eliminated many explicit forms of discrimination that existed in past decades, we saw the proportion of women rise rapidly in many formerly male dominated professions. That gives us a rich source of empirical evidence to draw from. (E.g. we saw in law and medicine that affirmative action led to self-perpetuating long term changes in gender ratio; once going into a law career wasn’t signing up for a life of being an extreme minority, womens’ representation shot way up). With the biological explanation, we have evidence of certain gender differences, and we have evidence of disparities in representation, but we have no theory of how the two are causally linked. That’s the hallmark of pseudo-science. Say we know that women are more cooperative than men. What does that mean for programming? Is programming inherently less cooperative than fields like accounting where there are more women than men? What is the sensitivity of programming choice to differences in “cooperativeness?” The biggest confounder is that while we have scientfic studies associating genders with traits, we have nothing linking traits with professions. That’s where Damore’s memo goes off the rails into handwaving and begging the question: he repeatedly assumes that because men are over represented in programming, that programming is necessarily characterized by male traits. (E.g. thing oriented versus people oriented: why does Goldman Sachs have more women creating abstract financial instruments than many tech companies have creating social apps?)

reader5000 9y ago
Yes, when affirmative action becomes status quo, you get a stable population of whoever you are affirming into the profession. However, that is not removing an explicit form of discrimination but rather introducing one. Certainly, it is quite difficult to predict what psychological profile will succeed in a particular profession. But observing that males tend to succeed in programming is not begging the question whether males have relative genetic predisposition to programming (especially at the top 0.1% google level) but rather serves as evidence for the proposition. When we observe for instance that Asians are overrepresented as programmers, we don't use that to infer that non-Asians are discriminated against, but rather that for whatever reason Asians seem to possess some trait profile, possibly genetic, possibly not, advantageous for programming work. I'm not claiming that women were never discriminated against, just that it does not appear to be the best explanation for the observed large trends in gender ratios. For instance it doesn't explain male/female behavior differences in other arenas like criminality while genetic differences does.
- elefanten 9y ago
  >Yes, when affirmative action becomes status quo, you get a stable population of whoever you are affirming into the profession. However, that is not removing an explicit form of discrimination but rather introducing one. This is super clearly not what GP was talking about. Removing implicit and explicit barriers to participation is not affirmative action. You are asserting the opposite of history here. >Certainly, it is quite difficult to predict what psychological profile will succeed in a particular profession. But observing that males tend to succeed in programming is not begging the question whether males have relative genetic predisposition to programming (especially at the top 0.1% google level) but rather serves as evidence for the proposition. It in no way serves as evidence for that proposition. By logic, quite the opposite is happening: you are proposing that as an explanation for the observation. There is no inherent connection between them. >When we observe for instance that Asians are overrepresented as programmers, we don't use that to infer that non-Asians are discriminated against, but rather that for whatever reason Asians seem to possess some trait profile, possibly genetic, possibly not, advantageous for programming work. Such a "trait profile" could include things like contemporary trends in national cultures, economic development policies, attitudes toward education, random vagaries of history and much much more. Anecdotally, I don't think I've ever heard someone, with a straight face, include genetics in such a discussion. But just as broad a spectrum of influences could be at play with the current gender balance of a given profession. And that's exactly the point: we don't have the clean data to make ANY strong claims about how much of the status quo was shaped by genetics. >I'm not claiming that women were never discriminated against, just that it does not appear to be the best explanation for the observed large trends in gender ratios. For instance it doesn't explain male/female behavior differences in other arenas like criminality while genetic differences does. It doesn't have to be the "best" or only explanation. But if there's good reason to believe that it's a factor, it should be taken into consideration and attempts should be made to solve it just like any other problem.

dbnoch 9y ago

I wont answer the Consider* part of what you said because it's a straw man argument and should be treated as such. There are more male programmers than female NOW* but that wasn't the case 50 years ago. Systematic discrimination has been proven as fact, with palpable examples (I shouldnt have to google this for you). The 'genetic differences' that this memo quoted have been proven wrong by science... making it psuedo-science.

throwaway324823 9y ago
Where are those genetic differences proven wrong, exactly? Because from what I've read, many scientists ranging from evolutionary to behavioral psychologists don't agree with your stance. For example: http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...

tekproxy 9y ago

Bro, I'm going to have to give you a citation for wrongthink. Take your logic and rationality elsewhere, we're busy feeling things.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

Many jurisdictions define rape in a manner that requires that the person assaulted be penetrated. Under this definition, it is literally impossible for a woman to rape a man, except in cases where that definition would include anal penetration with an object other than a penis. In most jurisdictions, this would be defined as sodomy, not rape. I don't have stats on sexual assault handy. But I can tell you that, yes, our society does, in fact, teach children (and adults) that rape is something only boys do. This is a fact.

rmc 9y ago
I think you'll find that many feminists and activsts are not happy with most juristictions rape laws.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  I have zero idea why you feel the need to point that out to me.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pokemongoaway 9y ago

Yep they did the same to me... If they don't like your argument they just flag it as offensive. Admins are obviously on the side of oppression since I was prevented from posting for the last few hours and they threatened to ban me. It's like... Employee discusses theory and gets fired to silence the unwanted opinion. Then we discuss whether it should have happened or not - and we're at the point now of suppressing any opinions that strongly disagree with the firing. So not only aren't you allowed to support an idea - but you're not allowed to defend anyone who has supported it. This is why this discussion always comes back to free speech! Why can't we defend each other's rights to free speech? After participating in this thread it is clearer than ever.