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Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

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Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#91

Post by aaron-lebo »

anon12345690 wrote: post #84
aaron-lebo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing outright false, but that was the major problem with it. Just because you aren't obviously wrong and you safecheck yourself with facts doesn't mean you are actually correct in your assessment. He didn't say anything outright false, only that men and women are different and have different interests, so forcing 50/50 wont be a good outcome I agree with OP that this difference in interests is probably socialized.…

Facts are used as evidence, which he what he did. There's nothing wrong with that. If you have a better explanation then let's hear it but all you said was that you believe it's "probably socialized" based on what exactly? This article explains in great detail how that is not the case in any significance and there are even examples where men and women have been socialized oppositely and still end up choosing typical…

Just because you provide sources doesn't mean your sources are relevant to your argument or good sources. Go look at his memo. It is paragraph after paragraph with his beliefs on the matter and then a link to some source which you are supposed to check out. He often doesn't bother explaining how those sources are relevant.

That's why it is bad. Just because you've got sources doesn't mean you are saying anything useful and I'd argue the discussion proves that. He's got sources, which is somehow supposed to mean he's correct. He's blessed his argument with associations with academia, but doesn't really make compelling arguments.

This article explains in great detail how that is not the case in any significance and there are even examples where men and women have been socialized oppositely and still end up choosing typical gender interests.

> some inherent difference between the sexes

Yes, men and women are different.

It doesn't do it at all convincingly. If sexes have been socialized differently for tens of thousands of years (and they have), and one of the sexes has been intentionally limited by the other for long durations of this time (they have), then how do you say what is biological and what is sociological? He never bothers with this.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#92

Post by SuoDuanDao »

Scea91 wrote: post #34
jabot wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter-point: People can hold beliefs because they have certain consequences. Simple example: "all people are created equal". This is a belief that is (probably) frequently held because it has assumed beneficial consequences for society. So if people choose to believe in something because that has certain consequences - then a belief can be political. EDIT: To expand on this a little... It seems to me that you…

Just note that believing something because it has nice consequences is just logically wrong. Formally: 1) A => B 2) I would really like B to be true, because it has some benefits. 3) Therefore A must be true. If we are in search of truth and want to build a consistent model of the world then we just can't accept this kind of reasoning. Also, even if A really turns out to be false, it doesn't mean that B can't be true…

I would disagree with the generalization. Consider the following set of propositions:

1) The placebo effect predicts that believing I'll get over a bout of the flu quickly increases my chances of getting over the flu quickly

2) I believe in the placebo effect and would like to get over the flu quickly

3) Therefore, I choose to believe I will get over the flu quickly.

There is no reason besides practicality to believe proposition 3), but if propositions 1) and 2) are accepted, proposition 3) follows naturally. To my own way of thinking, some beliefs are self-justifying, but I'd be interested to hear how your worldview deals with this example.

edit: spacing

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#93

Post by so33 »

dmichulke wrote: post #47
scarmig wrote: post #26

This reminds me of something I was thinking about earlier today. It's well known that men generally are stagnating economically, while women are catching up. In many metro areas, single women out earn single men. And so I came across this paper[0], which had some interesting research about that. And what struck me was this: there's an explicit assumption that men have worse socio-emotional skills than women, and that…

FWIW, I often read about these PC-related things in the US (and sometimes Canada). Much less so in Europe, although they start playing catch-up with their new hate speech laws. As a German I can (mostly) speak my mind about men vs women, the only minefield there is IMO (remotely) Nazi-related stuff, e.g., try to criticize Israel foreign policy or mass immigration.

It’s funny. All I hear about in my social circles is people complaining how PC everything is now. It seems like it’s rather PC to complain about political correctness.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#94

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

I'm a PhD student at a UK university. From what I've seen in my department (Engineering) there are about 3 women for every 5 men, both in staff and students, a not unreasonable ratio. However, I struggle to remember more than a couple of women who are British or from an English-speaking country. The majority come from India, China, the rest of Europe, the Middle East etc.

I've also seen this in the six years I worked in the UK as a developer, before starting my PhD. Of the women developers I worked with, (in this case, not so many) the majority were Indian or Eastern or Southern European. The same goes for the students in my data science Masters (also in a UK university).

Other women I've discussed this with, have similar experiences. In particular Greek women (like myself) don't remember any perception of a strong bias in numbers against women in STEM subjects. I have a fair few Greek women friends who have bachelors or master's degrees in computer science.

All this is of course anecdotal but it makes me think there is some sort of bias that is not explained by "interest in things" vs "interest in people", or any such difference between the sexes, because it is particular to specific cultures, rather than to the sexes around the globe.

In any case "gendered interest" sounds like a convenient oversimplification that seeks to confirm cultural bias as natural and spontaneous, rather than an attempt to understand it. Instead of answering any questions it passes the buck; it leaves someone else to wonder why girls and boys are interested in different things (e.g. fire trucks vs barbie dolls). The same goes for academic performance in school: that is also an observation that requires an explanation- not an explanation in and of itself.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#95

Post by edna314 »

I don't get it. Why is equality of outcome not a desirable goal, especially in science and technology? These authors only try to disprove theories which potentially explain the inequality and then conclude that there is no injustice. This is logically flawed in my opinion. In order to justify the inequality they would need to come up with a plausible theory why the inequality is inevitable and then support it with sound facts. Otherwise social pressure from "feminists" is well justified.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#96

Post by Pyxl101 »

rayiner wrote: post #85
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this asserted several times, but nobody's said which of his sources they disagree with. Could you link to a source you disagree with and the basis for your disagreement?

E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15022997 .

That claim in Damore's memo shouldn't be controvertial. Here's what Deborah Soh (PhD in sexual neuroscience) had to say about it:

> Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at. http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...

More from her about Damore's memo and scientific research in this space:

> Despite how it's been portrayed, the memo was fair and factually accurate. Scientific studies have confirmed sex differences in the brain that lead to differences in our interests and behaviour.

> As mentioned in the memo, gendered interests are predicted by exposure to prenatal testosterone – higher levels are associated with a preference for mechanically interesting things and occupations in adulthood. Lower levels are associated with a preference for people-oriented activities and occupations. This is why STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields tend to be dominated by men.

> We see evidence for this in girls with a genetic condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, who are exposed to unusually high levels of testosterone in the womb. When they are born, these girls prefer male-typical, wheeled toys, such as trucks, even if their parents offer more positive feedback when they play with female-typical toys, such as dolls. Similarly, men who are interested in female-typical activities were likely exposed to lower levels of testosterone.

> As well, new research from the field of genetics shows that testosterone alters the programming of neural stem cells, leading to sex differences in the brain even before it's finished developing in utero. This further suggests that our interests are influenced strongly by biology, as opposed to being learned or socially constructed.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/no-the-google-manife...

EDIT: I wish I understood why I've been downvoted so that I could improve my comments in the future. Is the problem that it's too verbose? OK, I've tried to shorten it and replaced the links to three studies with a link to Deborah's article above.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#97

Post by ZeroGravitas »

psyc wrote: post #87
rayiner wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damore’s screed was also rife with fallacies and unsupported generalizations, let’s not forget that. It drives me nuts that his lack of “charisma” (rather than his lack of logical reasoning skills or writing ability) is what people are saying got him fired. If he’d written a manifesto that sloppy on a technical topic people would’ve ripped him to shreds.

So it's normal and ok if being wrong got him fired? No matter, as that isn't what got him fired. He was fired because it's good optics in this climate. And I'm asserting the climate isn't good.

Does suggesting that feminism, the civil rights and the LGBT movement are actually jewish-marxists plots to destroy American capitalism in a memo about diversity you distribute at work count as "being wrong"?

I mean it is wrong of course. It doesn't even make sense. Which gender Tim Cook prefers to see naked seems unrelated to running an efficient supply chain for one of the largest corporations on the planet.

But generally, I'd say that suggesting that people you work with are actually committing treason by asking for fair treatement under the law should be outside of the political pale. Apparently those days have gone though.

He does seem like such a nice, well-spoken young conspiracy theorist though.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#98

Post by mantas »

bitL wrote: post #66
natch wrote: post #9

it’s fine and valid to research whether people encounter improper bias in their careers, which is clearly often the case. But their discussion is incomplete without at least recognition of another possible partial cause of gender disparity in tech, the fact that many sexist anti-STEM cues are given to children at a much earlier stage, way before careers are even on the horizon. These cues are delivered by parents, te…

Many girls decide at around age 12 that a better life strategy is for them to get a husband that will do all the heavy lifting. This obviously worked for thousands of years and is likely a result of evolution and specialization. I always admire when I meet an independent woman that rejected this conditioning but it's very rare :( Maybe there should be a better approach to early-teenage girls to help them to make a di…

Independent non-family women lead to less children. Thus society as a whole has motive to lead girls towards this specialization.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#99

Post by thinkingemote »

natch wrote: post #9

it’s fine and valid to research whether people encounter improper bias in their careers, which is clearly often the case. But their discussion is incomplete without at least recognition of another possible partial cause of gender disparity in tech, the fact that many sexist anti-STEM cues are given to children at a much earlier stage, way before careers are even on the horizon. These cues are delivered by parents, te…

the article does address this topic. I think the implication is that these effects are lower in the Scandinavian countries, where children are given less bias as their societies are more equal. The article suggests that these effects are very low.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#100

Post by cosmic_ape »

anon12345690 wrote: post #90
cosmic_ape wrote: post #89

People talk about research involving indicators such as "ability" and social factors. But have anyone asked the boys and girls before college, or before starting a graduate degree why and how they make their choices? It seems to me that doing it on scale, like 1000 participants, in a given fixed country, would clear the picture. In a way, they are voting with their choices, and all we need is a focus group.

From the article: "It should be noted, though, that the largest study to date included nearly 1000 children (9-14 years old) and found no effects.9 This latter study is of particular interest, because it included adolescents, whereas most other stereotype threat studies were carried out with university students. If stereotype threat discourages girls from pursuing math-intensive STEM coursework and careers, its effec…

Yes, but I'm not interested in works where researchers are trying to validate a hypothesis like "stereotype threat discourages girls from pursuing math-intensive STEM coursework and careers". I'm asking about what these adolescents are actually saying. Raw answers, perhaps in two paragraphs, to a simple question of how they think they would choose.

edit: and then of course, such dataset should be anonymized and made public, so anyone could see what we are talking about.

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