I think it is interesting to note that machine learning is succeeding where the philosophers failed, in defining common sense notions like these.
Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
21–29 of 29 posts
Re: Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Claiming that "a lot of talented people being excluded for one reason or another" is a positive claim. It's merely a fact about the world. If you are against this, that's a normative axiom (or possibly a normative conclusion derived from another normative axiom). As for the undue rigor involved, it's you who seems to be demanding a lot: you demand proof that men and women are statistically unequal merely to admit it…
"We don't know which", and will stop there. That's fine. All I ask is you be explicit about where you stand: on the side of the status quo, not wrapped in the flag of math as you would like pretend, but simply content with the way things are, and utterly incurious about how to change it. [edit] For fuck sake - if you had noticed a 50% imbalance in CPU usage on your server farm, surely you'd spend some time trying to…
If I narrowed the source of CPU usage down to this block of code:
for {
x And if someone suggests g() might be the problem, you are assuming they are wrong and demanding an excess level of rigor from them. That's exactly what Scott Alexander is warning against.
[edit: I'm sticking to epistemology. I'm not hijacking the thread to discuss gender.]
Re: Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We don't know which", and will stop there. That's fine. All I ask is you be explicit about where you stand: on the side of the status quo, not wrapped in the flag of math as you would like pretend, but simply content with the way things are, and utterly incurious about how to change it. [edit] For fuck sake - if you had noticed a 50% imbalance in CPU usage on your server farm, surely you'd spend some time trying to…
If I narrowed the source of CPU usage down to this block of code: for { x I would not immediately conclude that f() is the source of the problem. That's what you are advocating doing. And if someone suggests g() might be the problem, you are assuming they are wrong and demanding an excess level of rigor from them. That's exactly what Scott Alexander is warning against. [edit: I'm sticking to epistemology. I'm not hij…
Still going on that vein, eh? If you notice a global imbalance in CPU usage, you should be totally focused on understanding the cause, not inventing excuses why g() is not the problem or why people investigating f() are wrong.
I frankly don't care whether it's a pipeline problem or a filter problem, or both. I have more than a decade of performance work under my belt; I'm familiar with the usual arguments. What makes me take notice is that so much effort is put into arguing why there isn't a problem at all, or that people who say there is a problem are somehow mistaken.
Seriously. Do you think that women are intellectually flawed? Yes or no? If yes, I'd love to hear why. If no, what is your best guess why they are underrepresented? No tricks, no shifting of levels. Why do you think it's so? "I don't know, let's find out together" is a perfectly good answer.
Re: Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
What the argument is really about is whether there is a problem to fix. The diversity numbers clearly indicate that there is. You can't draw a normative conclusion from a positive claim alone. You additionally need some normative axiom. No fact can tell you what you should do. In the discussion you cite, the disagreeing parties have different normative axioms. Some people believe in statistical equality as an end goa…
A good example of the debate and tactics I'm describing. :) If you agree that women are not somehow less mentally capable than men, then the fact that technical jobs are 85% dominated by men should be a concern. Not just for "normative" reasons or "statistical equity", but simply that there are a lot of talented people being excluded for one reason or another. If not, you should explain WHY not. Anomalies demand expl…
[deleted]
Re: Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I narrowed the source of CPU usage down to this block of code: for { x I would not immediately conclude that f() is the source of the problem. That's what you are advocating doing. And if someone suggests g() might be the problem, you are assuming they are wrong and demanding an excess level of rigor from them. That's exactly what Scott Alexander is warning against. [edit: I'm sticking to epistemology. I'm not hij…
Still going on that vein, eh? If you notice a global imbalance in CPU usage, you should be totally focused on understanding the cause , not inventing excuses why g() is not the problem or why people investigating f() are wrong. I frankly don't care whether it's a pipeline problem or a filter problem, or both. I have more than a decade of performance work under my belt; I'm familiar with the usual arguments. What make…
> your best guess why they are underrepresented?
Christina Hoff Sommers' guesses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-6usiN4uoA, http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/what-lean-i...
Re: Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a benchmark for the brain. It's not close to everything, but it measures something and that something is significant. I'm sure you agree, but I need to get it out.
IQ is only significant within its own context and that significance is functionally limited even within that context: an individual requires an IQ above a certain threshold to not be considered "developmentally delayed" but above a certain threshold, it also doesn't mean much. By context, I mean that IQ has meaning for the way life is for humans right now, but given a return to an earlier context (hunter-gatherer) or…
You've been Gladwelled man.
http://neoacademic.com/2011/10/05/gladwell-was-wrong-high-an... http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/10/1336
The nature of the relationship between ability and performance is of critical importance for admission decisions in the context of higher education and for personnel selection. Although previous research has supported the more-is-better hypothesis by documenting linearity of ability-performance relationships, such research has not been sensitive enough to detect deviations at the top ends of the score distributions. An alternative position receiving considerable attention is the good-enough hypothesis, which suggests that although higher levels of ability may result in better performance up to a threshold, above this threshold greater ability does not translate to better performance. In this study, the nature of the relationship between cognitive ability and performance was examined throughout the score range in four large-scale data sets. Monotonicity was maintained in all instances. Contrary to the good-enough hypothesis, the ability-performance relationship was commonly stronger at the top end of the score distribution than at the bottom end.
Re: Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
IQ is only significant within its own context and that significance is functionally limited even within that context: an individual requires an IQ above a certain threshold to not be considered "developmentally delayed" but above a certain threshold, it also doesn't mean much. By context, I mean that IQ has meaning for the way life is for humans right now, but given a return to an earlier context (hunter-gatherer) or…
You've been Gladwelled man. http://neoacademic.com/2011/10/05/gladwell-was-wrong-high-an... http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/10/1336 The nature of the relationship between ability and performance is of critical importance for admission decisions in the context of higher education and for personnel selection. Although previous research has supported the more-is-better hypothesis by documenting linearity of ability-pe…
I haven't been Gladwelled as I avoid the guy and this is my own opinion formed from being around a fair number of very smart people over the course of my life. In my opinion, IQ matters to a point, "good-enough" if you want to call it that, and then other personality factors or strengths and weaknesses take over.
Re: Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've been Gladwelled man. http://neoacademic.com/2011/10/05/gladwell-was-wrong-high-an... http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/10/1336 The nature of the relationship between ability and performance is of critical importance for admission decisions in the context of higher education and for personnel selection. Although previous research has supported the more-is-better hypothesis by documenting linearity of ability-pe…
I haven't been Gladwelled as I avoid the guy and this is my own opinion formed from being around a fair number of very smart people over the course of my life. In my opinion, IQ matters to a point, "good-enough" if you want to call it that, and then other personality factors or strengths and weaknesses take over.
Does the cited study affect your opinion?
Re: Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I narrowed the source of CPU usage down to this block of code: for { x I would not immediately conclude that f() is the source of the problem. That's what you are advocating doing. And if someone suggests g() might be the problem, you are assuming they are wrong and demanding an excess level of rigor from them. That's exactly what Scott Alexander is warning against. [edit: I'm sticking to epistemology. I'm not hij…
Still going on that vein, eh? If you notice a global imbalance in CPU usage, you should be totally focused on understanding the cause , not inventing excuses why g() is not the problem or why people investigating f() are wrong. I frankly don't care whether it's a pipeline problem or a filter problem, or both. I have more than a decade of performance work under my belt; I'm familiar with the usual arguments. What make…
> Do you think that women are intellectually flawed? [...] If no, what is your best guess why they are underrepresented?
My best guess is that relevant male math-type skills have a higher variance than female math-type skills. That means that even if the average ability is about the same, there are more men than women at the very top of the skill distribution and ALSO at the very bottom of the skill distribution. If you look for math morons, you'll find more men; if you look for math geniuses, you'll find more men. If you look for people with roughly average math ability, you'll find more women. If the variance is even a LITTLE larger, it can explain an arbitrarily large imbalance at the high end, and we have both (some) statistical evidence that it IS larger and plausible biological reasons to expect that it MIGHT be larger.
Women have two X chromosomes; men only have one. All the important stuff that makes us human is on the X chromosome. So for the sake of intuition, let us imagine that there were only THREE available genes for math ability, all equally prevalent in the population, and any X chromosome you inherit includes one (and only one!) of these three "math ability" genes. The genes are:
(1) "moron" (recessive)
(2) "genius" (recessive)
(3) "average" (dominant)
In that world, men would have a 1 in 3 chance of being a genius and women would have a 1 in 9 chance of being a genius.
Similarly, men would have a 1 in 3 chance of being a moron and women would have a 1 in 9 chance of being a moron.
In that world, having two X chromosomes makes women "more average" than men, which means that if some career requires the "math genius" gene, that career will be 75% male.
Does that all make sense?
Okay, now let's suppose that "genius" gene is a bit more rare. Let's say that only 10% of X chromosomes have the "potential math genius" gene. In that case, men would outnumber women 10-to-1 instead of 3-to-1 in professions requiring it. The rarer that gene is, so long as that gene is either recessive or to some degree averages out with its counterpart on the other X chromosome, it will be hugely rarer that women fully express the properties that gene codes for.
If this analysis is valid, it suggests that women are less likely to be at the very TOP of math-related fields (or will have to work a lot harder to get there) for essentially the same reason women are far less likely than men are to be colorblind.
(relevant study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7604277 )