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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

#161

Post by biofox »

edna314 wrote: post #95

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 so…

I am completely committed to removing biases and discrimination that stand in the way of competent people, but I find the idea of equality of outcome for its own sake to be deeply troubling. It moves the discussion away from systemic biases, and to an artificial metric that has little relation.

A simple example of why equality of outcome might be undesirable is this: people don't like doing jobs they find unfulfilling.

Even though I admire the nursing profession, I have absolutely no desire to become a nurse. If nursing were the highest paid profession, it still wouldn't interest me -- because I get my kicks out of playing with ideas and building things.

In my case, it has nothing to do with ability, or IQ, or emotional intelligence.

Should nursing training and culture be manipulated to be more appealing to people like me? I would only want that if it were beneficial for the nursing profession itself.

It doesn't matter that people with my temperamental make-up are under-represented, because there are plenty of other people who are drawn to nursing.

Where there are systemic problems that hinder women / minorities who want to excel in tech, focus on those, instead of an artificial number.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#162

Post by bjl »

collyw wrote: post #145
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…

"charismatically-challenged unfortunates like Damore" Maybe I am on the autistic spectrum, or ots teh fact I studied science but i thought that Damore's memo was fairly well written. First time I went through it he made a couple of points where I though to myself "that sounds controversial", but then in every case he had backed it up with some study validating it to some extent. It was certainly a lot better written…

I mean, he explicitly references anti-Semitic conspiracy theories as his source at multiple points. That alone is enough to completely undermine his credibility, leaving aside the myriad other problems with his memo.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#163

Post by fastball »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #94

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…

Do you not think this could be because immigrants are looking for economic prosperity and have fewer connections?

For example, a British woman that graduates from a British university with a history degree and wants to work in the UK probably met a couple people during the course of her degree (or at any other point) that can help her move forward with a career. Because let's face it, you're not going to get a high-paying job with high marks in your History BA and nothing else. As such, her prospects will be better in her field of study or in a reasonably related field (or any field where having contacts strongly helps and where she has made such contacts).

Meanwhile, an immigrant will be much, much less likely to have such local connections/contacts. Presumably then, immigrants will gravitate towards fields where getting into them / your pay grade is more closely based on competency and not "who you know". In other words, fields like STEM or (in your case) anything which requires a PhD.

Could that not be an explanation for your experience?

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#164

Post by jabot »

tptacek wrote: post #152

Once again: compared to other STEM fields, women participate less in CS than any other field except physics. By double digits percentage more in mathematics PhDs. Statistics is almost 50/50. Several rigorous earth sciences fields --- chem and biochem, for instance --- have 50% or greater female participation. One thing all these fields have in common is that they are more intellectually rigorous and harder to succeed…

I was with you until you wrote:

> But that has nothing to do with why Google has so few women engineers.

Uh. What?

As far as I can tell, it has _everything_ to do with that. These two things are so closely related i cannot fathom how you can make such a statement...

Also... You make the same point twice. To paraphrase you:

a) "academic CS is less intellectually rigorous and less hard to succeed in than chem/etc -- but there are less women in it"

b) "work as google is simply not that hard, just wiring form fields to databases -- but there are less women in it"

For both a) and b) you then point out that they are problematic and that we cannot explain them (and, for the record, I agree with you on both counts) - but they are still unrelated?

EDIT: To reiterate: I think you are right in that the gender imbalance is a problem and is hard to explain. It's just this disconnect that i don't get here...

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#165

Post by SiempreViernes »

tptacek wrote: post #152

Once again: compared to other STEM fields, women participate less in CS than any other field except physics. By double digits percentage more in mathematics PhDs. Statistics is almost 50/50. Several rigorous earth sciences fields --- chem and biochem, for instance --- have 50% or greater female participation. One thing all these fields have in common is that they are more intellectually rigorous and harder to succeed…

Yeah, and after all those words about how even in advanced gender equality countries differences persist they offer the following qualitative reason for it:

> The sex difference in interest in people extends to a more general interest in living things, which would explain why women who are interested in science are much more likely to pursue a career in biology or veterinary medicine than computer science.

Right, so because as a woman she intrinsically like people more, my friend is now doing a postdoc about moths?

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#166

Post by mmirate »

edna314 wrote: post #95

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 so…

Independently of the arguments of the other person who has graciously responded to you ... please read this story: https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#167

Post by js8 »

drewbuschhorn wrote: post #120
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…

I've seen this sentiment from former fans of left leaning fiction, and I have to ask: are you sure it's not the culture that's stayed the same and you who drifted right?

> Are you sure it's not the culture that's stayed the same and you who drifted right?

As a leftist, yes. I understand to be on the left means to strive for equality of power among people, economic and social. To be on the right means, at best, not to care about power inequalities between people.

I cringe every time when other people think that feminists and SJWs (I would prefer to call them by different terms but I don't know any) are leftist. They are only in a certain very narrow sense, which makes them often to be on the right, paradoxically. They often do not care about oppressed white males. But if you do not care about some oppressed group, then you don't stand for equality.

Feminism became to be included in the left, because in the past, all women were oppressed. It's no longer the case, and some feminists do not actually care about equality of other groups.

Some biologist put it nicely in a discussion: The left (as a broad political movement) might suffer from a predatory problem - being joined by someone who is oppressed, but doesn't actually want equality, only power. But that's the nature of the game.

And this conflict is nothing new, either. Noam Chomsky, a giant of the left, has been affected by it in the 70s, when he defended free speech of a Holocaust denier.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#168

Post by tptacek »

jabot wrote: post #164
tptacek wrote: post #152

Once again: compared to other STEM fields, women participate less in CS than any other field except physics. By double digits percentage more in mathematics PhDs. Statistics is almost 50/50. Several rigorous earth sciences fields --- chem and biochem, for instance --- have 50% or greater female participation. One thing all these fields have in common is that they are more intellectually rigorous and harder to succeed…

I was with you until you wrote: > But that has nothing to do with why Google has so few women engineers. Uh. What? As far as I can tell, it has _everything_ to do with that. These two things are so closely related i cannot fathom how you can make such a statement... Also... You make the same point twice. To paraphrase you: a) "academic CS is less intellectually rigorous and less hard to succeed in than chem/etc -- bu…

This is an essay that knocks down two extrinsic causes for gender disparity in STEM and then suggests, using Finland as an example, that the cause of disparity is probably intrinsic.

It may be the case that some intrinsic difference between men an women keeps the field of chemical engineering at 40-60 women/men, or mathematics at 35-65.

But those fields are cognitively more demanding than commercial software development or, for that matter, undergraduate computer science. No cognitive ability or innate affinity explains the degree of disparity in computer science as practiced in industry. If it did, you'd see it in related STEM fields.

The term for an argument gerrymandered around the data to the degree "CS participation disparity is innate" is is special pleading.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#169

Post by js8 »

snikeris wrote: post #79
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…

This episode of the Joe Rogan podcast w/ Jordan Peterson and Bret Weinstein touches on similar issues (among other things) and discusses why it's still important to have discussions like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G59zsjM2UI

The one with Steven Pinker is also good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUDAdOdF6Zg

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#170

Post by Scea91 »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #92
Scea91 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quite an interesting counterexample. The trick is in the self-reference where the fact that you believe the premise actually affects the conclusion which most of the time is not the case.

I might consider this an edge case and include it in my worldview as an exception ;)

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