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I had the same thought reading this article as I did when reading Damore's memo: to what end? I'm not sold on the benefits purported by this article for talkin

I had the same thought reading this article as I did when reading Damore's memo: to what end? I'm not sold on the benefits purported by this article for talking about the statistical variances between different cohorts for people, but I can see how it's very capable of stoking prejudice in ways that are very harmful. The article makes a vague attempt at balance by noting that individual differences are more important than these statistical variances, but it's easy enough to just leap-frog to this conclusion and just treat each other as human beings.

tobefrank 7y ago
I like the take in this article on the greater damage you can do ignoring the facts. You end up guessing at other explanations for why people aren't comfortable in certain working environments (that others love) and end up inventing chains of mistruth that just make things worse and people more miserable. Damore wanted to encourage diversity by acknowledging sex differences - eg: change the workplace for more feminine sensibilities with practises like pair programming. Fear of prejudice is always good but we should fear blind ignorance too.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
It's hard not to read this comment as, "I don't like the conclusion, so it'd be better if we simply stayed ignorant of these facts." Why do you need to be 'sold' on scientifically verified knowledge? > The article makes a vague attempt at balance by noting that individual differences are more important than these statistical variances This is not an "attempt at balance", because individual variance and group averages are not competing ideas or opposing ideologies that must be balanced against each other.
- h0l0cube 7y ago
  > Why do you need to be 'sold' on scientifically verified knowledge? Nothing wrong with scientific inquiry, but when such facts are placed in context of, say, an internal memo at Google, or, an opinion piece in popular scientific press, it has rhetorical impact. You have to wonder 'to what end' they are hoping for with their exposition. With the Google memo, did they hope to change hiring strategies? Would this have had any real impact on the operations at Google? Did Damore feel that the hiring strategies at the company were having any tangible negative outcomes... if so, he didn't care to mention that. So why then? Same with this article. What is the author's concern here? What is really lost when we cease to generalize people's behavior by sex? The article gave no compelling answers.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > it has rhetorical impact. You have to wonder 'to what end' they are hoping for with their exposition. I think the difference between scientific mindset and political mindset is that the former doesn't ask this question or consider it relevant. > With the Google memo, did they hope to change hiring strategies? Would this have had any real impact on the operations at Google? Yes, this was kind of the reason this memo was written - and remember, it was written in response to Google soliciting ideas on the topic. > Did Damore feel that the hiring strategies at the company were having any tangible negative outcomes... if so, he didn't care to mention that. So why then? Did you read the memo? It's whole text was arguing that diversity efforts at Google are misguided and harmful, and what should be done instead.
    - h0l0cube 7y ago
      > I think the difference between scientific mindset and political mindset This article is a rhetorical play, for the average person to consider more this point of view. It's arguments to do so were weak at best. > Did you read the memo? It's whole text was arguing that diversity efforts at Google are misguided and harmful, and what should be done instead. Did you? Because I don't recall him stating any actual harms, but speculation. No even an anecdote to back his claims.
      - edanm 7y ago
        > Because I don't recall him stating any actual harms, but speculation. No even an anecdote to back his claims. To be fair, the memo argued that the specific way Google goes about in trying to increase diversity was not going to work, because the underlying assumptions of the cause of the differences was wrong, and proposed specific other ways to increase diversity.
      - extempore 7y ago
        Did you read the memo as it was written, replete with links to supporting research? Or did you only read the maliciously leaked version which had stripped out all the links?
  - 7y ago
jariel 7y ago
"to what end?" Well, not firing people for stating the facts, would be 'one end'. Yes - it could cause trouble, but not if we try to be adults about it.
0xBA5ED 7y ago
From a social perspective, allowing an issue to breathe can act as an inoculation against groups who might harbor extreme interpretations. Alternatively, sidelining the issue is likely to offer these groups time and space to fester in their echo chambers. Perhaps the mere fact that a thing is controversial is an indication it needs to be "aired out".
- h0l0cube 7y ago
  Sam Harris is sympathetic to this view point (famous for his defence of James Damore and hosting Charles Murray on his podcast), but he also cedes that individual differences are far more important than statistical brackets. This article gives heavy weight to the idea that the brackets are useful, and doesn't really give a compelling reason why, and I think it ought to, or at least give greater weight to the value of judging people in isolation of their superficial characteristics.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    Looking at people as individuals is what people and organizations do in everyday life, but "brackets" and averages explain large-scale social phenomena such as the way people tend to sort in occupational fields, making them "more" or "less" diverse. The two perspectives are quite compatible, indeed complementary.
    - h0l0cube 7y ago
      > The two perspectives are quite compatible, indeed complementary. I think you're being quite sanguine here. The two ideas are not perfectly orthogonal, and I've already explained why in other comments. If you were to, for example, use these 'brackets' to inform company policy, or city planning, you'd be only reinforcing the stereotype by increasing the activation energy for people to chose different. We can live in a pluralistic, cosmopolitan societies, where people are truly judged by the content of their characters and find their way to where they fit best. Our ability to personalize services and institutions to the unique abilities of the individual has been bolstered by modern information technology. Why bother using the blunt tools of prejudice? We've already been down that path. And how can we predict that society, and the brackets, would not shift in the future if given half the chance? Once again, what's the utility of this kind of thinking? And further to that, what could we be missing out on by reasserting this mode of thinking?
manigandham 7y ago
The search for scientific truth is an end all to itself.
- h0l0cube 7y ago
  It's not the truth that there are statistical differences between population based on sex that irks me, it's that the author claims it has more value than evaluating someone as an individual, and outweighs the harms. I'm not sure why people are defending science here, because I'm not attacking it.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    I don't see the author claiming that. You evaluate someone as an individual when you're specifically talking about an individual. In this case it's about groups so those are the results being discussed. Group level analysis is also useful as a backdrop before diving into specifics even when discussing a specific individual and has been shown to have predictive power at every level.
  - matt-snider 7y ago
    I think you must have missed it because the author mentions several times that it is more important to evaluate the individual. Here: > First and foremost, I think this requires a recognition that none of the findings I presented in this article, nor any findings that will ever come out-- justifies individual discrimination. We should treat all people as unique individuals first and foremost. Here: > I am a strong believer that individual differences are more important than sex differences. And here, on the topic of male-female classification based on whole brain data: > In fact, some recent studies using the most sophisticated techniques have consistently found greater than 90% accuracy rates looking at whole brain data. While this level of prediction is definitely not perfect-- and by no means do those findings justify individual stereotyping or discrimination-- that's really high accuracy as far science goes.
    - h0l0cube 7y ago
      No, I didn't miss any of those remarks. But I did note they were drowned in rhetoric to the opposite. I could go further, but I'd be just repeating things I've said in other comments.

tobefrank 7y ago

I like the take in this article on the greater damage you can do ignoring the facts. You end up guessing at other explanations for why people aren't comfortable in certain working environments (that others love) and end up inventing chains of mistruth that just make things worse and people more miserable. Damore wanted to encourage diversity by acknowledging sex differences - eg: change the workplace for more feminine sensibilities with practises like pair programming. Fear of prejudice is always good but we should fear blind ignorance too.

TulliusCicero 7y ago

It's hard not to read this comment as, "I don't like the conclusion, so it'd be better if we simply stayed ignorant of these facts." Why do you need to be 'sold' on scientifically verified knowledge? > The article makes a vague attempt at balance by noting that individual differences are more important than these statistical variances This is not an "attempt at balance", because individual variance and group averages are not competing ideas or opposing ideologies that must be balanced against each other.

h0l0cube 7y ago
> Why do you need to be 'sold' on scientifically verified knowledge? Nothing wrong with scientific inquiry, but when such facts are placed in context of, say, an internal memo at Google, or, an opinion piece in popular scientific press, it has rhetorical impact. You have to wonder 'to what end' they are hoping for with their exposition. With the Google memo, did they hope to change hiring strategies? Would this have had any real impact on the operations at Google? Did Damore feel that the hiring strategies at the company were having any tangible negative outcomes... if so, he didn't care to mention that. So why then? Same with this article. What is the author's concern here? What is really lost when we cease to generalize people's behavior by sex? The article gave no compelling answers.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > it has rhetorical impact. You have to wonder 'to what end' they are hoping for with their exposition. I think the difference between scientific mindset and political mindset is that the former doesn't ask this question or consider it relevant. > With the Google memo, did they hope to change hiring strategies? Would this have had any real impact on the operations at Google? Yes, this was kind of the reason this memo was written - and remember, it was written in response to Google soliciting ideas on the topic. > Did Damore feel that the hiring strategies at the company were having any tangible negative outcomes... if so, he didn't care to mention that. So why then? Did you read the memo? It's whole text was arguing that diversity efforts at Google are misguided and harmful, and what should be done instead.
  - h0l0cube 7y ago
    > I think the difference between scientific mindset and political mindset This article is a rhetorical play, for the average person to consider more this point of view. It's arguments to do so were weak at best. > Did you read the memo? It's whole text was arguing that diversity efforts at Google are misguided and harmful, and what should be done instead. Did you? Because I don't recall him stating any actual harms, but speculation. No even an anecdote to back his claims.
    - edanm 7y ago
      > Because I don't recall him stating any actual harms, but speculation. No even an anecdote to back his claims. To be fair, the memo argued that the specific way Google goes about in trying to increase diversity was not going to work, because the underlying assumptions of the cause of the differences was wrong, and proposed specific other ways to increase diversity.
    - extempore 7y ago
      Did you read the memo as it was written, replete with links to supporting research? Or did you only read the maliciously leaked version which had stripped out all the links?
- 7y ago

jariel 7y ago

"to what end?" Well, not firing people for stating the facts, would be 'one end'. Yes - it could cause trouble, but not if we try to be adults about it.

0xBA5ED 7y ago

From a social perspective, allowing an issue to breathe can act as an inoculation against groups who might harbor extreme interpretations. Alternatively, sidelining the issue is likely to offer these groups time and space to fester in their echo chambers. Perhaps the mere fact that a thing is controversial is an indication it needs to be "aired out".

h0l0cube 7y ago
Sam Harris is sympathetic to this view point (famous for his defence of James Damore and hosting Charles Murray on his podcast), but he also cedes that individual differences are far more important than statistical brackets. This article gives heavy weight to the idea that the brackets are useful, and doesn't really give a compelling reason why, and I think it ought to, or at least give greater weight to the value of judging people in isolation of their superficial characteristics.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Looking at people as individuals is what people and organizations do in everyday life, but "brackets" and averages explain large-scale social phenomena such as the way people tend to sort in occupational fields, making them "more" or "less" diverse. The two perspectives are quite compatible, indeed complementary.
  - h0l0cube 7y ago
    > The two perspectives are quite compatible, indeed complementary. I think you're being quite sanguine here. The two ideas are not perfectly orthogonal, and I've already explained why in other comments. If you were to, for example, use these 'brackets' to inform company policy, or city planning, you'd be only reinforcing the stereotype by increasing the activation energy for people to chose different. We can live in a pluralistic, cosmopolitan societies, where people are truly judged by the content of their characters and find their way to where they fit best. Our ability to personalize services and institutions to the unique abilities of the individual has been bolstered by modern information technology. Why bother using the blunt tools of prejudice? We've already been down that path. And how can we predict that society, and the brackets, would not shift in the future if given half the chance? Once again, what's the utility of this kind of thinking? And further to that, what could we be missing out on by reasserting this mode of thinking?

manigandham 7y ago

The search for scientific truth is an end all to itself.

h0l0cube 7y ago
It's not the truth that there are statistical differences between population based on sex that irks me, it's that the author claims it has more value than evaluating someone as an individual, and outweighs the harms. I'm not sure why people are defending science here, because I'm not attacking it.
- manigandham 7y ago
  I don't see the author claiming that. You evaluate someone as an individual when you're specifically talking about an individual. In this case it's about groups so those are the results being discussed. Group level analysis is also useful as a backdrop before diving into specifics even when discussing a specific individual and has been shown to have predictive power at every level.
- matt-snider 7y ago
  I think you must have missed it because the author mentions several times that it is more important to evaluate the individual. Here: > First and foremost, I think this requires a recognition that none of the findings I presented in this article, nor any findings that will ever come out-- justifies individual discrimination. We should treat all people as unique individuals first and foremost. Here: > I am a strong believer that individual differences are more important than sex differences. And here, on the topic of male-female classification based on whole brain data: > In fact, some recent studies using the most sophisticated techniques have consistently found greater than 90% accuracy rates looking at whole brain data. While this level of prediction is definitely not perfect-- and by no means do those findings justify individual stereotyping or discrimination-- that's really high accuracy as far science goes.
  - h0l0cube 7y ago
    No, I didn't miss any of those remarks. But I did note they were drowned in rhetoric to the opposite. I could go further, but I'd be just repeating things I've said in other comments.