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>So if you think STEM rates today are due to only nature, then you’re full of belief that isn’t backed by science. I guess you could well be right. The scienc

>So if you think STEM rates today are due to only nature, then you’re full of belief that isn’t backed by science. I guess you could well be right. The science of it is not something I'm personally super-invested in. Again though, the main motivation of my comment is because I'm mad about the blatantly preferential treatment that women received (as a result of people trying to "right historical wrongs") back when I was a student a decade or so ago.

dahart 4y ago
It’s totally worth checking out that video I posted in the sibling comment if you have time, it is super interesting at the end, and I think you’ll enjoy it because it’s funny. There’s scientific evidence for people who claim to be pro women in STEM, from parents to tenured professors having relatively severe biases and not even knowing it. > I’m mad about the blatantly preferential treatment that women received (as a result of people trying to “right historical wrongs”) I understand why you and many people feel this way. Affirmative Actions are, in fact, preferential treatment which does put them in a category of bias and discrimination, and public support for Affirmative Actions is mixed. But it is a known bias undertaken intentionally, and the idea is that it’s temporary until we can show that things are fair (not the same, just fair). The idea is to combat the preferential treatment that men already receive, which we can prove is happening, but we don’t know how to fix. This one reason to consider not being mad about it - men absolutely received (and are still receiving) preferential treatment. The other reason I just hinted at - this isn’t a ‘historical’ wrong, it’s an ongoing wrong. (But it is getting less wrong over time!) There’s evidence for the fact that men are still getting preferential treatment, and as such women still have a right to be mad about it. But if we’re all mad then everyone’s pissed and nothing gets fixed. If we don’t like Affirmative Action, one natural question to ask is, what’s the practical alternative? Just assume for a minute that the claim that men get preferential treatment is true. Then how else could we fix that? What could you propose that would be better than giving an oppressed group preferential treatment? That does suck in a way, but we’ve tried a lot of things in the past, and attitudes that lead to bias are extremely stubborn and persistent, not just on gender but on race and class and other things too, and it’s not clear that time will fix them without other interventions. Let me try on a bad analogy for size. Pretend I’m mixing gas for my two-stroke dirt bike, and both my oil can and my gas can are leaky. I’m trying to get a half-and-half mix (pretend!) but when I pour what I think are equal amounts, I can see I end up with a 72/25 mix that’s oil heavy and way too rich, and some mess on the ground. I don’t have a way to plug the leaks, but I can see clearly that I have some. What should I do? Does it makes sense to slow the oil rate, or increase the gas rate until the mix is even? The right solution of course is plugs for the oil & gas cans, or new cans, but I need to drive to the hardware store in town first. This bad analogy doesn’t capture the distinction between fairness vs sameness - we want equal opportunity not necessarily equal outcome - but I think there might be value in the idea that we have leaky cans leaking in unequal amounts, and thus pouring a little more from one of them to balance out the leaks is a completely reasonable thing to do, no?

dahart 4y ago

It’s totally worth checking out that video I posted in the sibling comment if you have time, it is super interesting at the end, and I think you’ll enjoy it because it’s funny. There’s scientific evidence for people who claim to be pro women in STEM, from parents to tenured professors having relatively severe biases and not even knowing it. > I’m mad about the blatantly preferential treatment that women received (as a result of people trying to “right historical wrongs”) I understand why you and many people feel this way. Affirmative Actions are, in fact, preferential treatment which does put them in a category of bias and discrimination, and public support for Affirmative Actions is mixed. But it is a known bias undertaken intentionally, and the idea is that it’s temporary until we can show that things are fair (not the same, just fair). The idea is to combat the preferential treatment that men already receive, which we can prove is happening, but we don’t know how to fix. This one reason to consider not being mad about it - men absolutely received (and are still receiving) preferential treatment. The other reason I just hinted at - this isn’t a ‘historical’ wrong, it’s an ongoing wrong. (But it is getting less wrong over time!) There’s evidence for the fact that men are still getting preferential treatment, and as such women still have a right to be mad about it. But if we’re all mad then everyone’s pissed and nothing gets fixed. If we don’t like Affirmative Action, one natural question to ask is, what’s the practical alternative? Just assume for a minute that the claim that men get preferential treatment is true. Then how else could we fix that? What could you propose that would be better than giving an oppressed group preferential treatment? That does suck in a way, but we’ve tried a lot of things in the past, and attitudes that lead to bias are extremely stubborn and persistent, not just on gender but on race and class and other things too, and it’s not clear that time will fix them without other interventions. Let me try on a bad analogy for size. Pretend I’m mixing gas for my two-stroke dirt bike, and both my oil can and my gas can are leaky. I’m trying to get a half-and-half mix (pretend!) but when I pour what I think are equal amounts, I can see I end up with a 72/25 mix that’s oil heavy and way too rich, and some mess on the ground. I don’t have a way to plug the leaks, but I can see clearly that I have some. What should I do? Does it makes sense to slow the oil rate, or increase the gas rate until the mix is even? The right solution of course is plugs for the oil & gas cans, or new cans, but I need to drive to the hardware store in town first. This bad analogy doesn’t capture the distinction between fairness vs sameness - we want equal opportunity not necessarily equal outcome - but I think there might be value in the idea that we have leaky cans leaking in unequal amounts, and thus pouring a little more from one of them to balance out the leaks is a completely reasonable thing to do, no?