141–150 of 507 posts
It seems disingenuous not to mention the many debunkings of the memo's Science by Scientists. For example: https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
By my estimation there is about 7 layers of recursive debunkings so far. How many times you recurse before breaking out seems to depend most strongly on your initial starting biases.
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The firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's institutional ageism). And while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the spectrum. By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and doubled down on this discussion.…
> By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, To a small, vocal group. > By doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way There were good reasons for doing it that had nothing to do with science or evidence. There are women working at Google who do not need to be reminded of the genetic and biologic differences they have from their cishet male counterparts. If Damon had issues with the policies at Google…
I'm a white male. I know that the average Asian has a higher IQ than the average white man. This means positively nothing when comparing me with a given Asian, however.
That is the root of this discussion that so many so profoundly miss. The average Google male is not the average male. The average Google female is not the average female. He was not saying that women who work at Google are at a biological disadvantage, in any way, and that is a perverse misreading. He was saying that on the whole there's a biological reason when you roll the dice enough that more males are suitable for that work. In the scientific community this is utterly indisputable, in the same way that there are far more exceptional males (and autistic males), just as there are far more mentally handicapped males. That doesn't preclude handicapped or exceptional females, it's just less common.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's institutional ageism). And while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the spectrum. By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and doubled down on this discussion.…
"By doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way" But they didn't. That man's argument was not science. It wasn't. There was absolutely no scientific evidence behind his argument. He misrepresented studied, and he cherry picked what he wanted. For more on that, check here: http://blog.goldieblox.com/2017/08/open-letter-james-damore-... It's an article from a female engineer who read the manifesto, and takes issue w…
I want to follow up on this, can you give an example? From what little I know, it's essentially settled science that men and women have statistically different interests, and those interests exist across all cultures (implying a biological cause).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's institutional ageism). And while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the spectrum. By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and doubled down on this discussion.…
The firing was necessary, because not firing someone who creates a hostile working environment opens you to lawsuits from every single other person employed in your company. [1] Anyone who's taken training on sexual harassment would understand this. His essay is not scientific, or evidence-based. It's ten pages of micro-facts, followed by his biases or misunderstands, followed by enormous leaps of logic to macro-conc…
> argues that cognitive sex differences influence performance in software engineering, but presents no supporting evidence
This is completely made up
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In the article: > There are many actors in the whole Google/diversity drama, but I’d say the one who’s behaved the worst is the C.E.O., Sundar Pichai. He is implicitly criticizing the whole drama thing. And when saying Pichai behaved worst, I understand he is saying Pichai was who contributed most to make the drama bigger. I think Brooks is contributing a lot to make the drama bigger. That's my point.
So is your point that this journalist guy should just not write about it? That's his job. It's different from a CEO making a bad decision.
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That's not the argument being made by advocates for women in STEM. The mission (I among one of many adherents to it) is to open pathways in STEM up to women who are choosing not to pursue it because of socioeconomic blockers. Blockers such as this guy. Anyway, the real position being pushed by Women in Tech/STEM movements is that anyone can/should be free to work in any career and not expect e.g. pay differences and…
The more free the genders are, the more they tend to polarise on certain careers. Since they tend to pursue what they prefer. I'm all for having no blockers for people choosing what careers they want. However people will move towards there preferences, and there preferences will be set either by nature or culture.
The primary thesis of Damore's memo [1] was not that women are biologically unsuited to STEM careers. The primary thesis was that, at Google, you cannot even advance the hypothesis that biology might be a factor without putting your career at risk. Ironically, by firing Damore, Pichai proved him correct. EDIT: if you doubt this, just look at the document's title and TL;DR section. [1] https://assets.documentcloud.org…
I read James' document. I did not have the impression that this is his thesis.
"Google’s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety. This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed."
...firing him, at least the way they did it, confirmed that position.
Honestly, I think he made the right move just from a PR perspective. His firing makes sense: the CEO and HR are both acting to protect the company. The author of the manifesto caused Google a PR disaster and created a huge state of internal conflict, valid or not. The shareholders are probably really happy that their CEO removed a person who managed to get Google so much bad press in so little time. This is the reali…
The firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's institutional ageism). And while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the spectrum. By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and doubled down on this discussion.…
Anti-science way? Do you realize how subjective this is and how impossible it is to prove that today there are no other influences at play than biology? And that we've maxed on the number of woman in this field and we're now at an equilibrium determined by biology?
I would have been far more convinced if he noted a dwindling amount of harassment and reported bias using studies.
I dont understand, why did this google employee send a memo, why didnt he just write a blog about .. like normal people do I honestly think this is his biggest mistake (the google employee not the ceo) .. he didnt understand boundaries It is sad, that someone gets fired for his opinion, even if this opinion is offensive ... i do believe in ones right to be offensive But I think the medium used to express his opinion…
Note that this isn't just about sexism, but lots of protected class opinions could fall into this category of 'express this openly and you'll be fired'. No company of any size would be able to tolerate it.
"He could have wrestled with the tension between population-level research and individual experience. He could have stood up for the free flow of information." Honestly I don't agree. It's his job to facilitate an enjoyable work environment not be a champion of free speech. Free speech is plentiful outside the workplace. If you want to contact HR go for it. But the person who wrote the memo opened a can of worms impl…
Obviously he hasn't been doing that. Lots of Googlers apparently feel like they can't speak out on topics that might offend hard-left sensibilities.
> Women want to be respected by their coworkers and arguments like "biologically we've hit the max amount of women who are interested in this field" don't align with our experience.
Align with your experience? How would that be a valid way to measure anything?
The reason this thesis has weight is because it aligns with hiring data. Despite huge efforts software is not 50/50 balanced. This is because there's not 50/50 male/female graduation rates, and that in turn is because there's not 50/50 male/females studying CS to begin with.
Obviously there's some cause for this. If you rule out biological causes then you're left with unconscious bias and other evidence-free theories. Biological explanations have actual scientific studies behind them.