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Stereotypes are often better predictors of human behavior than actual psychological research. [0] Would Damore been more justified in his memo if he simply cit
by bloaf 5y ago
Stereotypes are often better predictors of human behavior than actual psychological research. [0] Would Damore been more justified in his memo if he simply cited common stereotypes rather than psychology research?
Throwing out psychology, as the author of the original piece wants to do, is a double edged sword. You may knock the legs out from under Damore's stool, but you have no evidence left to use to argue against him. Indeed, quite a few people's "gut feelings" are going to be aligned with his argument.
[0] https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/2016-jussim.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/2016-jussim.pdf
- dekhn 5y agoI don't see the need to use evidence to argue against (or for Damore). Everything he said is just opinion, not an actual argument. If instead you want to have an interesting argument, people shoudl start with Larry Summers, who articulated the same question but in a much more intelligent way (and was still cancelled because of it!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers#Differences_between_the_sexes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers#Differences_b... https://web.archive.org/web/20080130023006/http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080130023006/http://www.presid... Anybody who cares about Damore's message one way or the other should go back and read what Larry said, and internalize it. A brilliant leader was cancelled because he spoke what is the most likely hypothesis to explain the observed data.
- mindblock 5y agoAfter some thought on Larry Summers' hypothesis, there seems to be one major assumption that he's making that needn't be true - that the major culprit for high engineering and academic positions is aptitude. If this is the case, then he may well be correct, as it makes a lot of sense. But it is still a major assumption.