3 ms·
The section on overlapping bell curves is disappointing. > if you pull out a random man and a random woman, you have about a 77% chance the man will be taller
by ackfoobar 3y ago
The section on overlapping bell curves is disappointing.
> if you pull out a random man and a random woman, you have about a 77% chance the man will be taller
> you’d have about a 2% advantage over sheer random chance if you bet on the man to be more invested in achieving
I have no doubt that math is correct, but that's not the point. A small difference in the means becomes a big difference at the tails. And Google does select for the tail.
This response did the math: https://medium.com/@ryanbaldini/worth-noting-small-differences-in-the-means-of-two-distributions-can-lead-to-large-differences-at-c0d0f217ab56 https://medium.com/@ryanbaldini/worth-noting-small-differenc...
- acdha 3y agoThere are a few sex-linked neuroscience differences linked to innate rather than learned behavior, but they tend to be very low-level skills which aren’t directly linked to high level tasks, much less performance at a job which requires many high-level skills. A slight difference in, say, verbal versus spatial memory doesn’t tell you who’s a better programmer, and in studies it’s consistently been found that top performers mix a variety of skills. Google employs on the order of 140k people and it’s unlikely that more than a few of those are so dependent on one of those narrow skills that it would dominate hiring, much less that the bias would always run in a single direction.
- ackfoobar 3y agoAre you replying to me? Anyway, the example you give - verbal tilt - makes other career prospects more desirable, so the person is less likely to become a programmer.