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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

#131

Post by SiempreViernes »

arkh wrote: post #118
awinder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This “war” has been going on for centuries. The difference is that white men were totally dominating it until recent times, and a lot of them really don’t like that they may need to adapt behavior. African Americans had a right side of the street to walk on within the last 2 generations, for risk of being lynched. You better believe they’ve been parsing every word out of their mouths, not for fear of being labeled a…

> This “war” has been going on for centuries. The difference is that white men were totally dominating it until recent times, and a lot of them really don’t like that they may need to adapt behavior. African Americans had a right side of the street to walk on within the last 2 generations, for risk of being lynched. You better believe they’ve been parsing every word out of their mouths, not for fear of being labeled…

> A Chinese noblewoman had a lot more freedom than a English farmer.

You'll have to specify that better; for instance, is the farmer a landowner, or a serf? Both work in agriculture and can so rightly be termed a farmer.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#133

Post by aaron-lebo »

arkh wrote: post #118
awinder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This “war” has been going on for centuries. The difference is that white men were totally dominating it until recent times, and a lot of them really don’t like that they may need to adapt behavior. African Americans had a right side of the street to walk on within the last 2 generations, for risk of being lynched. You better believe they’ve been parsing every word out of their mouths, not for fear of being labeled a…

> This “war” has been going on for centuries. The difference is that white men were totally dominating it until recent times, and a lot of them really don’t like that they may need to adapt behavior. African Americans had a right side of the street to walk on within the last 2 generations, for risk of being lynched. You better believe they’ve been parsing every word out of their mouths, not for fear of being labeled…

To some extent. By 1500 the Spanish were in the Americas, the European powers were forming colonies on the African coast, the Russians were dominating Siberia.

By 1900 European powers dominated almost everything, including China who were bulled into war by the British. If you were a subject of any of those colonial powers, you certainly were at a disadvantage to your foreign masters. This isn't even considering gender. Out of all of those empires, how many were led by women? There were exceptions here and there, but men dominated.

It's not US centric nor incorrect by any means to suggest that Caucasian males have had significant advantages in social relations for an extended period of time.

rate limited, but to reply:

Read Caucasian as white or European and don't get stuck on semantics. Germany only very recently favored this race (or another vague term, "Aryan") more than anyone else in history, so most people know what it means, the semantics are a digression and not an answer to what has happened historically.

Also, this isn't guilt tripping nor "hating" on my ancestors, it is pointing out obvious facts. Many of us are products of this domination and have connections to both sides.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#134

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

Noos wrote: post #48

What's really annoying about this is that women are not underrepresented in STEM careers! The article mentions if anything, they are overrepresented in the life sciences, and are only underrepresented in math at the doctoral level. The issue is that we are suddenly defining STEM as computer science and engineering only, and that those are apparently the only worthwhile aspects of STEM. The sexism thing and message th…

I don't think it's just Engineering and Maths that have a problem. There's this joke where someone says "A man and his son are in a car crash and they're taken to hospital. The doctor sees the child and goes 'Oh no! It's my son!'". Then they ask you "who is the doctor"?

The point is that you are supposed to struggle with the answer because you can't imagine the doctor to be the boy's mother. That there exists an assumption that people will find this difficult to answer suggests that there is some sort of expected cultural bias about doctors being male or female.

An anecodte, of course- literally.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#135

Post by traverseda »

awinder wrote: post #110
psyc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lest we forget, it isn't only charismatically-challenged unfortunates like Damore who get thrown under a tank for daring to speak 'out of turn' wrt the social justice narrative. Just two hours ago, I happened to re-read the various vicious hit pieces written about Paul Graham several years ago, after he had the gall to speak his mind about representation. These are the times. Everywhere I look online, it's men vs. wo…

This “war” has been going on for centuries. The difference is that white men were totally dominating it until recent times, and a lot of them really don’t like that they may need to adapt behavior. African Americans had a right side of the street to walk on within the last 2 generations, for risk of being lynched. You better believe they’ve been parsing every word out of their mouths, not for fear of being labeled a…

Most men I know are pretty heavily in favour of equality. That might change if we treat equality as a war against men, instead of something we all work towards.

Adapting behavior is reasonable, but there's men also need to be able to have a voice, or you're going to get some major pushback. Hopefully we can keep this kind of war at a low simmer when trump is up for re-election.

More specifically, that means making sure that men do have a voice. I've seen a lot of silencing tactics deployed that are based on gender, or social class. It's all well and good to say "well that's how minorities always felt", but it doesn't actually make any part of this situation better.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#136

Post by [deleted] »

drewbuschhorn wrote: post #125
Pyxl101 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Damore’s screed was also rife with fallacies and unsupported generalizations, let’s not forget that Was it really rife with fallacies? Lee Jussim (professor of social psychology at Rutgers University) wrote: > The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity gets nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right. Geoffrey Miller (evolutionary psychology professor at University of New Mexico)…

Fwiw: I think you're being down voted because the citations you mention have all become a part of the controversy rather than being external evidence. Each of the scientists you mentioned above have at times before this controversy shown a willingness to say things specifically to get limelight. In culture war topics, the only real citations that can count are people above reproach, or people who are unknown but expe…

[deleted]

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#137

Post by Firadeoclus »

cousin_it wrote: post #117
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…

Yes, beliefs are chosen for consequences. And the optimal way to choose a belief based on consequences is to choose the truth. For example, my decision whether to take an umbrella today must be based on my honest best guess whether it'll rain today (and the relative utilities of various outcomes). If I shift my best guess one inch away from what's warranted by evidence, to obey social pressure or something, then acti…

Social pressure itself is a fact. In your umbrella-example, you're restricting your definition of utility to the immediate benefit of dealing with rain weighted against the cost of having to carry the umbrella. But your choice can have a social effect, too. In particular, you need to take into account that other people will not always act on exactly what is warranted by evidence.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#138

Post by bitL »

ahartmetz wrote: post #126
bitL wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is usually roughly 5 years behind US in social trends or tech, so it's coming soon.

I think 5 years is too long especially for tech, and there are things that are and will stay different. Otherwise Germany would be almost exactly like the US now, which it isn't.

I am not so optimistic; Big Data craze started in the US like 8 years ago, whereas in Germany it's in the past 2 years; Machine/Deep Learning is also only fringe, with most "Data Science" positions focused on classical (i.e. not really good) machine learning and Deep Learning is almost non-existent in the market. Only cars are years ahead of US. There is a significant latency in Germany in tech.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#139

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

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.

Maybe he was fired not just because he made the company look bad, but also because he insulted about 30% of his co-workers, and on top of that kept trying to get his memo read by as many people as possible within Google.

Banging on about a controversial subject that can cause upset and disruption in a work environment. Does that sound very professional, or something that a smart person would do? And do you really want that kind of person in your team?

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#140

Post by rayiner »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #96
rayiner wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You (and she) are focusing on the wrong part of the chain of reasoning. The issue is not whether there are gender differences in preferences, but why we have any reason to believe that programming is a “masculine” profession. The fact that men and women sometimes prefer different things due to biological factors does not mean that if you observe men and women preferring different things, that can be explained by biological factors. That’s the basic logical fallacy underlying Damore’s screed. (Pointing to articles validating the scientific assertions doesn’t help, because the challenge isn’t the scientific premise, but the inferences Damore is drawing from that.)

For example, for many years Law was 95% male. You could say that it was a masculine profession because it’s all about conflict while women prefer peacemaking. But today 50% of new large firm attorneys are women. Law isn’t any softer or gentler now—in fact it’s probably less civil. Same for teaching. We explain teaching being dominated by women on the basis that teaching is about nurturing. But in India, the vast majority of teachers are men.

You could easily say that programming is feminine. It’s not at all physical, all about cooperating and communicating with other people, it’s about managing expectations, etc.

Also, the truck analogy has been debunked. It’s explained by the fact that girls have a higher affinity for faces than boys. Which makes sense: infants don’t have any association between trucks and masculine professions like construction work. They can’t. Any gender difference observable at a very young age has to be unrelated to the associations adults have between trucks and masculinity.

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