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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

#201

Post by traverseda »

awinder wrote: post #189
traverseda wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Yep, that’s right. The well informed lead society, not the idiots. If you wanna go back to the dark ages make your point, but mine is that a biology major working for a technology company making commentary on psychology is a slam dunk case of someone who should just shut up. Certainly not someone who should be egged on. BTW: the original comment was based on his job. Google didn’t hire him to make comments like that,…

Mine is that the basics of science are the same, no matter the discipline. Of course a lot of "science" has nothing to do with scientific methodology.

He did post the memo to an employee-led internal forum on diversity... Clearly the problem was he posted the wrong opinion.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#202

Post by lawlessone »

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…

>Whatever is holding women's participation in our field at or below twenty percent is artificial, and a travesty.

CS is often toxic in my opinion. I can recall one instance were a lecturer harped on about why "men are better than women" .

Wish i spoke up, but the guy ruled the place.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#203

Post by bloak »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #134
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 assu…

That works much better with "surgeon" instead of "doctor". Lots of doctors are female, but not so many surgeons, at least here in the UK.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#204

Post by tome »

cousin_it wrote: post #107
tome wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beliefs are value-neutral. Only arguments for or against beliefs can be political or not. I wonder why you didn't go a step further to postulate "only actions can be political or not". Of course argument is action, but it could be claimed that only argument qua action is political.

Because actions are downstream from beliefs, while arguments are upstream of beliefs. I prefer to fix bugs upstream.

> arguments are upstream of beliefs

If only!

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#205

Post by moduspol »

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…

That's kind of the scary part. People are reading it, yet the media can't mention it without it calling it an "anti-diversity screed." If that memo is almost universally mischaracterized and smeared, then the arguments simply can't feasibly be made. The chilling effect is real.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#206

Post by throwaway8075 »

qwr23qwer wrote: post #183
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…

Maybe women just see CS for what it is - 'simly not that hard, wiring form fields to databases', and think, let others tap away at the keyboards, I'll be a surgeon or whatever. So, if that were the case, would you say that it's fair to now force these would be neuro surgeons, doctors, lawyers, microbiologists, etc.. to 'wire fields to databases', because in 2018 some people believe that has a somewhat high status in…

> believe that has a somewhat high status

especially when CS folks are still considered nerds by default and nerds are still the butt of jokes.

It's not high status, there's just a window of opportunity where it's high paying compared to jobs with similar complexity (clerical office work). That, too, will end.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#207

Post by cousin_it »

tome wrote: post #204
cousin_it wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because actions are downstream from beliefs, while arguments are upstream of beliefs. I prefer to fix bugs upstream.

> arguments are upstream of beliefs If only!

Aren't they? All beliefs have reasons. It's just that some of these reasons don't hold water and I'm trying to point out which.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#208

Post by Caveman_Coder »

novia wrote: post #192

Hi everyone. I'm a woman with a math degree who just completed a computer programming certificate. I've wanted to study math my whole life, and I wasn't exposed to programming as a field of study until college. I just wanted to state that, for the record, having these sorts of discussions on hacker news is extremely distressing to me. I've worked hard to get the accreditations that I have, and I usually enjoy the thi…

> "When I pursue a career in this field, how will my coworkers perceive me?"

In all honesty, recently I've seen underperforming women get promoted to positions they shouldn't have been promoted to because of political pressures, so there is going to be some sense of "is she competent or is she a diversity hire/promotion?" They also might think, does she really enjoy tech, is she a nerd like me, or is she just looking for a cushy office job in software that the "diversity/women-in-X" groups are so loudly promoting.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#209

Post by jenthoven »

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…

1. This just begs the question: why are men more ambitious and successful? 2. Clearly, this “decision” that women make when they’re 12 doesn’t effect them in many other fields, including life sciences, law, etc, because they are the majority in those fields.

Re: Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

#210

Post by pc86 »

moduspol wrote: post #191
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wan…

> he insulted about 30% of his co-workers He didn't insult anyone, although some amount of his coworkers did feel insulted. The difference between these two things is significant.

I don't think he intended to insult anyone, but I also don't think it's unreasonable to believe that people could be insulted based on what he said. That's the gray area your binary distillation completely ignores. It's a little more nuanced than "he hurt my feelings!"
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