5 ms·

People are unwilling, to the point of delusion, to accept the possibility that this higher variance really does explain differences in representation among sexe

People are unwilling, to the point of delusion, to accept the possibility that this higher variance really does explain differences in representation among sexes across various top talent industries. Academic society is in a weird place where this kind of bias is acceptable. Which is antithetical to science and I therefore understand Strumia's frustration.

pygy_ 8y ago
Industries and other activities (chess comes to mind). I personally think it is more likely than not to explain the discrepancy. That being said, I'm not necessarily in favor of a blindly meritocratic society for reasons I don't have the time to develop today.
rosser 8y ago
Meanwhile people (though broadly, it appears, a different set of them) also appear to be unwilling, to the point of delusion, to accept the fact that it is meaningless to attempt to extrapolate from statistical phenomena to individual, or vice-versa. So, sure: stipulated. Male h. sapiens sapiens have statistically greater variability, across the population. That in no way whatsoever prevents a woman from being the biggest or smartest, or a man the smallest or weakest, or either the best at one job, or the worst at another. Population trends are population trends. They do not meaningfully constrain individual expression.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  You are correct that a set of people are unwilling to accept that, but it’s actually the same set. Those who bring up male variability pretty frequently take great pains to state, gratuitously, that it applies to populations in a general sense and not individuals. Damore called this out as well, but the mob rewrote his words for him to omit anything like that. Most men advancing this argument have no problem whatsoever with the idea that there can be women who are better than they are. For some reason it’s impossible to utter words like (downvoted, wtf? See...) GP did without a lot of people putting extra words in your mouth and assuming you’re using population generalizations as a thinly veiled charade to attack individuals.
  - rosser 8y ago
    That's quite curious to me, since the overwhelming majority of the argument I've seen that cites the Damore memo glosses right over that distinction, or, at best, does an, "I'm not saying the thing, but, you know, the thing..." with this very question. Maybe that's an inference I'm putting there, in at least some of the cases, but in another nontrivial subset of them, it's a serious exercise in creative interpretation to find any other read of the person's own words.
    - pygy_ 8y ago
      Damore did not mention the variability hypothesis, but he clearly made his points in terms difference of distributions, implying that aiming for exact parity while using metrics that are biased in favor of males was foolish. At least that's what I remember of his essay. The whole thing was a bit ham-fisted though...
    - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
      Haha, it glosses over that because it seems obvious! Why is a disclaimer necessary? It feels inappropriate. Why would someone assume I’m saying this other awful thing, instead of saying only what I’m saying, nothing more and nothing less? Your last comment is truly perplexing to me, and it’s something I’ve observed from other “detractors”. Why are the words not read and interpreted literally? Why does it take a serious exercise in creative interpretation to not assume ulterior motives? I’ve spent a very long time puzzling over that. I considered it might be a “once bitten, twice shy” type situation, in which there is hyper vigilance involved, but that would only seem to explain “victims”, not allies, who do the same thing. This would seem to be supported by the observation that it’s only racist/sexist in one direction. But I really don’t know.
      - rosser 8y ago
        > Why does it take a serious exercise in creative interpretation to not assume ulterior motives? Because I try to follow the HN guideline of assuming good faith on the part of the people with whom I engage. I'm definitely not always successful, but I doubt anyone is. When I find I'm having to get creative with my interpretation of the comment I'm reading, to the extent that I'm reading in things that appear counterfactual to the comment's intent, or things its author has said elsewhere in the thread, in order to find a position that isn't premised in this broken extrapolation between populations and individuals we're discussing, is when I feel left with little choice but to assume it is thusly brokenly premised. That is to say: I try not to find it, but when I find myself twisting someone's words in order to make it not appear in them, my fallback case is to (tacitly) assume it's there, pending better evidence. Does that clarify the perplexity my (admittedly somewhat awkwardly phrased) comment seems to have created?
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  > So, sure: stipulated. Male h. sapiens sapiens have statistically greater variability, across the population. That in no way whatsoever prevents a woman from being the biggest or smartest, or a man the smallest or weakest, or either the best at one job, or the worst at another. It does not prevent a women from being the most (or the least) anything. But it says a lot about the probability of that being the case.
  - rosser 8y ago
    So, if a woman comes along who is, in point of fact, the smartest person in the room, do we accept that, or do we insist that because the probability is that much smaller, we must assert it over the reality? Because one of those things sure seems to happen a whole lot more than the other.
    - davrosthedalek 8y ago
      One should, obviously, accept that. But if the hypothesis is true, one should also accept that, in a room of smart (or dumb) people, the ratio is not 50:50. There is obviously a need to fight against any discrimination against an individual based on an unrelated factor (race, gender, hair color etc.). But I fear that a lot of measures do not actually fight against that, but add discrimination to offset other discrimination to reach the 50:50. While this obviously has moral problems, I think it can be a good tool if it reduces the discrimination against individuals in the long run. But /that/ must be the metric.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      I've known women who were often the smartest person in the room. My experience is that people accept that and defer to them. I've not commonly encountered situations where intelligence isn't deferred to, though.

pygy_ 8y ago

Industries and other activities (chess comes to mind). I personally think it is more likely than not to explain the discrepancy. That being said, I'm not necessarily in favor of a blindly meritocratic society for reasons I don't have the time to develop today.

rosser 8y ago

Meanwhile people (though broadly, it appears, a different set of them) also appear to be unwilling, to the point of delusion, to accept the fact that it is meaningless to attempt to extrapolate from statistical phenomena to individual, or vice-versa. So, sure: stipulated. Male h. sapiens sapiens have statistically greater variability, across the population. That in no way whatsoever prevents a woman from being the biggest or smartest, or a man the smallest or weakest, or either the best at one job, or the worst at another. Population trends are population trends. They do not meaningfully constrain individual expression.

lawnchair_larry 8y ago
You are correct that a set of people are unwilling to accept that, but it’s actually the same set. Those who bring up male variability pretty frequently take great pains to state, gratuitously, that it applies to populations in a general sense and not individuals. Damore called this out as well, but the mob rewrote his words for him to omit anything like that. Most men advancing this argument have no problem whatsoever with the idea that there can be women who are better than they are. For some reason it’s impossible to utter words like (downvoted, wtf? See...) GP did without a lot of people putting extra words in your mouth and assuming you’re using population generalizations as a thinly veiled charade to attack individuals.
- rosser 8y ago
  That's quite curious to me, since the overwhelming majority of the argument I've seen that cites the Damore memo glosses right over that distinction, or, at best, does an, "I'm not saying the thing, but, you know, the thing..." with this very question. Maybe that's an inference I'm putting there, in at least some of the cases, but in another nontrivial subset of them, it's a serious exercise in creative interpretation to find any other read of the person's own words.
  - pygy_ 8y ago
    Damore did not mention the variability hypothesis, but he clearly made his points in terms difference of distributions, implying that aiming for exact parity while using metrics that are biased in favor of males was foolish. At least that's what I remember of his essay. The whole thing was a bit ham-fisted though...
  - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
    Haha, it glosses over that because it seems obvious! Why is a disclaimer necessary? It feels inappropriate. Why would someone assume I’m saying this other awful thing, instead of saying only what I’m saying, nothing more and nothing less? Your last comment is truly perplexing to me, and it’s something I’ve observed from other “detractors”. Why are the words not read and interpreted literally? Why does it take a serious exercise in creative interpretation to not assume ulterior motives? I’ve spent a very long time puzzling over that. I considered it might be a “once bitten, twice shy” type situation, in which there is hyper vigilance involved, but that would only seem to explain “victims”, not allies, who do the same thing. This would seem to be supported by the observation that it’s only racist/sexist in one direction. But I really don’t know.
    - rosser 8y ago
      > Why does it take a serious exercise in creative interpretation to not assume ulterior motives? Because I try to follow the HN guideline of assuming good faith on the part of the people with whom I engage. I'm definitely not always successful, but I doubt anyone is. When I find I'm having to get creative with my interpretation of the comment I'm reading, to the extent that I'm reading in things that appear counterfactual to the comment's intent, or things its author has said elsewhere in the thread, in order to find a position that isn't premised in this broken extrapolation between populations and individuals we're discussing, is when I feel left with little choice but to assume it is thusly brokenly premised. That is to say: I try not to find it, but when I find myself twisting someone's words in order to make it not appear in them, my fallback case is to (tacitly) assume it's there, pending better evidence. Does that clarify the perplexity my (admittedly somewhat awkwardly phrased) comment seems to have created?
toasterlovin 8y ago
> So, sure: stipulated. Male h. sapiens sapiens have statistically greater variability, across the population. That in no way whatsoever prevents a woman from being the biggest or smartest, or a man the smallest or weakest, or either the best at one job, or the worst at another. It does not prevent a women from being the most (or the least) anything. But it says a lot about the probability of that being the case.
- rosser 8y ago
  So, if a woman comes along who is, in point of fact, the smartest person in the room, do we accept that, or do we insist that because the probability is that much smaller, we must assert it over the reality? Because one of those things sure seems to happen a whole lot more than the other.
  - davrosthedalek 8y ago
    One should, obviously, accept that. But if the hypothesis is true, one should also accept that, in a room of smart (or dumb) people, the ratio is not 50:50. There is obviously a need to fight against any discrimination against an individual based on an unrelated factor (race, gender, hair color etc.). But I fear that a lot of measures do not actually fight against that, but add discrimination to offset other discrimination to reach the 50:50. While this obviously has moral problems, I think it can be a good tool if it reduces the discrimination against individuals in the long run. But /that/ must be the metric.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    I've known women who were often the smartest person in the room. My experience is that people accept that and defer to them. I've not commonly encountered situations where intelligence isn't deferred to, though.