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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

#171
> Many academics in the modern world seem obsessed with the sex difference in engagement with science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM) fields. Or rather they are obsessed with the fact that there are more men than women in some of these fields. ... Proponents of these theories and their activist followers believe that some significant proportion of the sex differences in STEM fields – but curiously only those in which men outnumber women ...

Completely leaving aside the rest of content, the only obsessed people here are those who are obsessed with not understanding what the issue is about perceiving it to be an obsession. We are not obsessed with the number of women in STEM for its own sake (it's an important but a secondary concern) but obsessed with the inequality of power. As women happen to be underrepresented precisely in those areas that confer power -- including some STEM fields -- that is what we care about. If women were underrepresented in software engineering but commensurately overrepresented in, say, politics, banking or high management, this would have been a matter of less concern. As women happen to be underrepresented in all of these, we're attacking each of these individually.

Of course, those of us who are in STEM also feel that women underrepresentation (aside from the much more important issue of power equality) is a huge loss of talent for our field.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#172
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equality of Chance is more desirable than Equality of Outcome as it values the decisions of a neutral individual more than the later. Of course, for Equality of Chance to be properly implemented you need to do away with as many barriers to it as possible but you should be willing to accept that no matter what you do, there won't be a perfect 50/50. From all evidence we have, there is strong evidence that male and fem…

> Equality of Chance is more desirable than Equality of Outcome as it values the decisions of a neutral individual more than the later. More desirable to whom? To the one with the worse outcome equality of outcome will always be more desirable than equality of chance. Plus, from a probabilistic point of view, wouldn't equal chances mean that for large numbers of trials (people) the outcome would also be equal? > I wo…

> Plus, from a probabilistic point of view, wouldn't equal chances mean that for large numbers of trials (people) the outcome would also be equal?

Only if human properties are statistically independent.

If they are not, then a policy that depends on equality of outcome will screw someone over.

This has happened before, e.g. in medicinal research. Turns out, generalizing to the general population from a medicinal trial that consists only of men results in worse treatment for women.

It seems to me that you argue from a POV that basic human properties are statistically independent. Now... Why do you think that is so?

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#173
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 biol…

Thank you for clarifying. Let’s not characterize programming as masculine or feminine (since that would begging the question and stereotyping). Let’s characterize it in terms of properties that have been scientifically studied.

I would characterize programming as very far on the “Things” side of the axis that is “People vs Things”.

See: Men and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in Interests

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/47af/4a7e87267aba681fb69715...

The fundamental task of programming – sitting in front of a computer, reasoning about the machine and the system, and writing code and debugging systems for hours on end — is about as “thing”-oriented as I can conceive of. One needs to do a great deal of this to get a CS degree.

Another dimension to consider is Systematizing versus Empathizing (citations omitted). Programming seems to be far on the systematizing side.

As a thought experiment, what jobs might be further on the side of “things“ and “systematizing” than programming?

(I don’t know of any studies that characterize the programming in these dimensions. I’m providing my intuition.)

I’m not super familiar with the practice of law, but I would guess that it’s actually fairly close to the middle of both of those spectrums. The law itself is systematic but practicing it involves working with people at every level (client, counterparty, judge, regulator). It’s possible to write and deliver code, or root-cause and fix a bug report, without interacting with another soul.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me that reads like a lot like credentialism. "Unless you've been formally vetted by the institutions we like you can't participate". It's like a bizzarro-world anti-intellectualism, where you can't read a scientific paper unless you have the right degree in that particular sub-field.

If the alternative to credentialism is idiots like Damore rabble-rousing other total idiots, sign me up for credentialism.

I mean the well credentialed seem to be doing more than their fair share of rabble rousing. Also like half or more of social psychology research can't be replicated, so clearly that particular credential is not highly correlated with being correct...

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#175
post #118

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…

what is your point? that in the rest of the world racism wasn't a thing or that racism is actually classicism? both of these things aren't true

> what is your point?

Well, "That's US-centric".

Racism doesn't even translate well to other countries today: not every country has the situation that a significant part of the population has ancestors that were relocated by force and had to work as slaves in recent history, and are easily distinguishable by skin color ("race").

Different countries, different problems. Hence, different delineations in the various culture wars all over the world.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen anyone interpret any of that. Also has nothing to do with civil rights but was talking about men and women liking different things, so forcing them in equal ratios does more harm than good. What exactly didnt make sense to you with that?

You should read the memo. Apparently lots of people just skimmed it, or read a summary. Your sibling comment quotes the exact footnote text where he references the popular anti-semitic conspiracy theory about "cultural marxism" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marx... "The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that William S. Lind in 2002 gave a speech to a Holocaust denial conference on the…

So being critical of critical theory is anti-semitic now? How very convenient!

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#177
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

I'm not sure that actually answers my question (which was admittedly rhetorical), if this has been going on since the 70s, (and longer!), what's changed that it is such a problem to you now as part of the left, while say 10 years ago it didn't bother you?

Reply to reply, so I'm out.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#178
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.

Screed? It was a simple memo, something that he meant for a few people and had shared internally for months before it became so widely misunderstood. 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. Also, Google even agrees with him: https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/958138574171287552 "Did I read this right? Susa…

He got political at the end though. Does this statement ("the Left tends to deny science concerning biological differences between people (e.g., IQ and sex differences)") really ring true? What are "extremely sensitive PC-authoritarians" and how do they advance an argument? Why is one of the citations a Wordpress blog (https://becauseits2015.wordpress.com/) with an explicit anti-feminist bias? These may not be 100% false things to link to or say, but they are very contentious.

I see the memo personally as more young-and-naive and I'm not one who thinks naivety is something that should get you fired, per se (though, much of his whines at the end were directed directly at Google being explicitly anti-conservative; rightly or wrongly, employees who noisily complain in public about their employer do often get dismissed). But he certainly wade into some touchy waters armed more with opinionated commentary sources versus hard science. There is a century's worth of troubling eugenics-oriented history on that "IQ and biological differences" quote that should inform one that this is not a remark to toss off lightly, and merely semi-support that with a link to a conservative think-tank link (that itself IMHO was pretty naive).

Chop the last bunch of the manifesto and it would be more interesting, but as it stands, the memo was not just "men and women are different" and how that applies to STEM careers. In the end, it was also a whine about how Google is Capital-L Left and "alienating conservatives" too.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#179

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…

Not to mention that there's nothing touchy-feely about biochem, which is chem except you take orgo almost immediately. But the prefix "bio" in it allows them to dismiss it.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#180
post #118

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…

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 gende…

"Caucasian" is a category that's or or less unknown in Germany, so "caucasian males" having advantages (or disadvantages) doesn't mean anything to us. That range of your categorization is much more nuanced around here. OTOH the US seems to have tons of categories that are simply called "Asian" here.

That's a big part in making that conversation US centric.

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