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As a group, girls outperform boys in school. By this simple model, men are statistically unqualified for every job. Seems a little unfair to men, but those are

by sagarm 2y ago

As a group, girls outperform boys in school. By this simple model, men are statistically unqualified for every job. Seems a little unfair to men, but those are the facts. All models are wrong; some are useful.

switchbak 2y ago
"As a group, girls outperform boys in school" - but is that true in science and engineering, as we're discussing here? Regardless, I think most folks would disagree with the conclusion that: if group $X outperforms $Y, then every instance of $X is more qualified and competent than every instance of $Y. The OP did very much not say "$X are statistically unqualified for every job" as you're saying, they said effectively: "on average, a member of $X is more qualified to be there than an instance of $Y". That's a very different statement. What we're talking about is taking the top N from an applicant group where the sizes of those two groups are very lopsided, that's a different discussion. I don't believe that the OP has proven that the quality of applicants between those groups are equivalent though (in either direction), which is important for comparing apples to apples. (Edit): As a parent commenter said, we also don't know the raw numbers of people who applied from each group. So if we don't know the applicant quality nor the number of applicants, I don't think you can make objective statements about the average/median quality of the students that made it through this process.
- sagarm 2y ago
  "group A is on average more qualified" and "group B is statistically unqualified" are similar statements, IMO. More importantly, this overly simplistic model clearly does not lead to useful conclusions. The fact that you appear to be taking the argument seriously is confusing.
  - switchbak 2y ago
    That depends entirely on what's meant by "statistically unqualified", I can't say I even know what's exactly meant by that. This overly simplistic model (and I agree it's oversimplified) is what's being debated here, and someone threw up a strawman, which I identified, and which you have apparently conflated as being the same thing.
klipt 2y ago
The teaching profession also happens to be female dominated and there are studies showing girls get graded higher for the same work as boys, so probably the bias starts at a young age.

by sagarm 2y ago

switchbak 2y ago

"As a group, girls outperform boys in school" - but is that true in science and engineering, as we're discussing here? Regardless, I think most folks would disagree with the conclusion that: if group $X outperforms $Y, then every instance of $X is more qualified and competent than every instance of $Y. The OP did very much not say "$X are statistically unqualified for every job" as you're saying, they said effectively: "on average, a member of $X is more qualified to be there than an instance of $Y". That's a very different statement. What we're talking about is taking the top N from an applicant group where the sizes of those two groups are very lopsided, that's a different discussion. I don't believe that the OP has proven that the quality of applicants between those groups are equivalent though (in either direction), which is important for comparing apples to apples. (Edit): As a parent commenter said, we also don't know the raw numbers of people who applied from each group. So if we don't know the applicant quality nor the number of applicants, I don't think you can make objective statements about the average/median quality of the students that made it through this process.

sagarm 2y ago
"group A is on average more qualified" and "group B is statistically unqualified" are similar statements, IMO. More importantly, this overly simplistic model clearly does not lead to useful conclusions. The fact that you appear to be taking the argument seriously is confusing.
- switchbak 2y ago
  That depends entirely on what's meant by "statistically unqualified", I can't say I even know what's exactly meant by that. This overly simplistic model (and I agree it's oversimplified) is what's being debated here, and someone threw up a strawman, which I identified, and which you have apparently conflated as being the same thing.

klipt 2y ago

The teaching profession also happens to be female dominated and there are studies showing girls get graded higher for the same work as boys, so probably the bias starts at a young age.