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The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

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Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#531

Post by dang »

mistermann wrote: post #509
and0 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck.

If you find yourself having similar problems with numerous people, you might want to consider the possibility that perhaps you should consider viewing the world from a different perspective. It's not easy, but it's possible.

Would you please stop posting personally condescending remarks toward people you disagree with? Regardless of how wrong they are, or seem, you're degrading the quality of the site by doing this.

Admittedly there is a whole lot of degrading going on in the current conflagration, but you've done this a whole bunch of times and it's definitely not helping.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#532

Post by pygy_ »

daughart wrote: post #501
pygy_ wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. These populations may have, for genetic reasons, a smaller gendered difference in tech interest. The "young males prefer trucks, young females prefer dolls" split is also found in chimps FWIW. Interest drives practice and practice drives skill.

It would truly be strange if genetic divergence over approximately 100,000 years (between these populations) ended up affecting a behavioral trait that has only been important for about 100 years in one of these populations. Well, it might not be strange if humans had the same generation time as insects. But for a species with generation time of 20 years, this is a very unlikely hypothesis IMO.

It could as well have diverged by accident. Sexual dimorphism in these kind of interest may not have any evolutional impact, but be affected by genes that were close to other genes that improve male fertility for example. The closer two genes are on a chromosome, the more likely they are to be selected together.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#533

Post by manicdee »

computerex wrote: post #301
zzalpha wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just gonna copy another comment I made elsewhere: The problem is that the gender differences cited cannot, in aggregate, explain the 70/30 bias toward men in the industry. There's a real similarity to the global warming debate, here. There are many factors that affect global mean temperature. For example, over the very long term, the sun will get brighter. But that can only account for an astonishingly tiny fract…

> But no serious psychologist or sociologist would claim that those differences can account for the dramatic real world bias in the industry. It simply doesn't follow. What's your evidence for this? Debrah Soh, the author supposedly has a PhD in sexual neuroscience so one would think she is qualified to make comments about this. And although I can't confirm this myself, the article does say that societies with greate…

It is interesting to me that this major claim is the one that has no citations supporting it. The other references detailing multivariate distinctions in gender morphology all go to pains to point out that most univariate measures have huge amounts of overlap, and pull the distinctions out of groupings of variables.

So why did Debrah Soh neglect to provide supporting citations for the claim that societies with greater gender equity have greater gender career gaps, given that it's the one most central to supporting the Anti-Diversity Manifesto?

Is Debrah going to dispute the claim that Engineers — having to deal with people — need "soft" skills? Is she going to claim that all STEM work is necessarily playing with wheeled toys?

How does Debrah explain that "Gender equality closes the math gap[1]"?

"For science literacy, while the USA showed the largest gender difference across all OECD nations, d = .14, gender differences across OECD nations were non-significant, and a small female advantage was found in non-OECD nations, d=-.09."[2]

It's one thing to be "good at mathematics", quite another to be "a good engineer."

Nobody who participates in quota systems or diversity hiring believes that what they are doing is sustainable in the long term. The point of attempting to hire more people from under-represented portions of the populace is to counter-balance institutionalised sexism.

Debrah Soh does raise one important point: sexism doesn't come from knowledge of a subject, but what we do with that knowledge.

1: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gender-equality-closes-m... 2: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#534

Post by Jabanga »

SippinLean wrote: post #522
Jabanga wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Postmodernists and feminists are generally very critical toward evolutionary psychology and hostile toward its scholars, so you're actually supporting my point.

You notably skipped over the majority of my comment, and only added more unfounded sweeping generalizations comparable to your similar ranting about feminists elsewhere. >The question is if there is more to consider in social constructs than simply evolutionary biology.

Of course there's more to consider than evolutionary psychology.. No one disputes that.

What many postmodernists, especially feminists, dispute, is that evolutionary psychology has some explanatory power for human behaviour. And the reason is simple: it contradicts the narrative that systemic racism/sexism is the only possible explanation for race and gender based differences in outcomes.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#535

Post by manicdee »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #398
zzalpha wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He acknowledges that in practice the gender differences are real, but small. Then uses the existence of those small differences to justify fundamentally changing their hiring policies. The latter does not follow from the former. Again, as with the global warming debate, it makes a lot more sense to tackle the larger influencers first, before addressing these smaller factors.

I think his thesis is we shouldn't fix discrimination by actually perpetrating the same thing - just against a different group.

If a see-saw is tipped to one side, you need to apply more weight to the other to balance it out. Nobody is suggesting that you can continue applying weight to the other end forever and still maintain balance, but you can't maintain balance unless you have some to start with.

Even achieving a 30/70 split in a male-dominated industry will help defuse some of the rampant masculinity which passes as social interaction (aka primate chest-beating). Having people around who think differently and don't want to conform to the established practices of pissing contests, dick-measuring and chest thumping will help establish better modes of operation and contribute to better decisions being made (no more buying product X because the saleswoman had huge breasts or the salesman displayed dominant primate behaviour).

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#536

Post by Jabanga »

dragonwriter wrote: post #529
Jabanga wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The first bullet point is "women are more people oriented". No, the first bullet point is: >Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things Which is true, and does not ascribe a particular set of traits to all women. It makes a statistical observation that refutes the notion that sexism is the cause of gender disparity in the STEM fields. > If you want to take his words at face value, go ahead, b…

> It makes a statistical observation that refutes the notion that sexism is the cause of gender disparity in the STEM fields. It does no such thing, because: (1) STEM fields, especially applied rather than theoretical ones, involve people as much as things (2) While in some STEM fields gender disparities are apparent from fairly early in career progression, that's not true of all STEM fields; in some (many of them ar…

>STEM fields, especially applied rather than theoretical ones, involve people as much as things

This doesn't negate my point.

You're correct that I oversimplified: some STEM fields are indeed less 'biologically geared' to men. But the principle remains: biologically established differences in interest can very plausibly explain the differences seen in gender representation in some STEM fields. It is the assertion of this fact that has invited unfounded accusations of sexism.

>women are overrepresented in education and entry-level work, but still lag men in pay and advancement

That alone says nothing about the presence or absence of systemic discrimination.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#537

Post by imminentviolet »

danso wrote: post #513
peoplewindow wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, did you read it? He lists the following: "* Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race [5] * A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates * Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate * Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scru…

Yes I did read it. You can check my comment history where I've even linked to that exact section you cite: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14953398 I asked for empirical evidence that these initiatives had led to bad results at Google. If the biological research so directly contradicts Google's aims with these diversity initiatives, then we should be able to measure the negative impact, no? That Google has had t…

What's the problem with scrutiny? If these policies are based on premises that aren't true, wouldn't it be better to discard them in favor of policies that are based on premises that are true? How would we do that without a discussion?

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#538

Post by imminentviolet »

MattLeBlanc001 wrote: post #505
peoplewindow wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, did you read it? He lists the following: "* Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race [5] * A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates * Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate * Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scru…

I was just thinking, since I'm one of those "diversity" candidates that never made it to an interview. does it mean that I'm a worse candidate, because even though my profile is favoured as you highlighted I've never made it to an interview.

If those are the only variables, logic would say yes.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#539

Post by Jabanga »

daughart wrote: post #504
Jabanga wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe these comments defend discrimination against women? I'm trying to understand how one could see it that way. I see both of these statements as unquestionably true, and the sexism accusation as stifling the type of free expression needed for rational dialogue. If facts are sexist, then the definition of sexism being used is wrong.

Both of those statements, even if true, say absolutely nothing about the relative abilities of men and women to write software.

They could very plausibly explain the differences in the number of men who write software relative to women. The only explanation is absolutely not "systemic discrimination against women".

I know it's trendy to defend feminist talking points, but it ultimately leads to what we see now with the Google firing: a public conversation where facts take a secondary role to ideology/dogma.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#540

Post by Jabanga »

Delmania wrote: post #463
Jabanga wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These 2 lines essentially state that as women are more interested in people, there are some roles they might not be able to perform. That's absurd. You're not even interpreting his comments at face value. You're attributing a subtext to them that only exists in your imagination. >Strip away his science and his words, he's a misogynistic techbro What an absolutely hateful and sexist comment. It amounts to: "strip awa…

You're correct, it is a hateful, sexist comment, and I won't take it back or apologize for it. The "angry white male stereotype" has been at the heart of programming for a long time; misogyny has been at the heart of programming for a long time. As eloquent and research based as this paper is, it's just another in that long line of thinking.

>You're correct, it is a hateful, sexist comment, and I won't take it back or apologize for it.

Then you're choosing to not be constructive. Sexism and racism are not constructive, and they are hurtful to innocent people.

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