The memo that this engineer chap at Google wrote, for which he got fired, was based on sound scientific evidence. It was also very balanced and not motivated by hate or disagreeableness (make sure you read his thesis before you comment0.

Still, it was politically a hot issue, perhaps understandably so. Nevertheless he got fired for, ostensibly, speaking the truth.

What does that say about society? Is there a point at which the political situation is more important than what the scientific data tells us?

[video]https://youtu.be/SEDuVF7kiPU?t=1478[/video]

51 minutes long!! Funk that!

What’s the TL;DW?

Understand or have experience before commenting…ppfffff.

Fake news, i’m out.

was based on sound scientific evidence

sources (plural) please.

If you are going to say something like that then you’d better be able to show that that is actually the consensus of Scientific opinion. It’s not enough to just highlight a single source.

[edit] A quick skim of the test and I’m calling some of his arguments crap as there are plenty of things that are social constructs that he seems to taken a given and the result of biology.

For Balance

12 pages.
Straw man first mentioned on page 3.
Mod warning on page 11.
Junky to be last poster.

🙂

Not sure what TL;DW is but ostensibly he suggested that not 100% of the gender gap in tech or leadership is down to bia, but might also be the result of genetic differences that impact things like personality and motivations between men and women.

If you are going to say something like that then you’d better be able to show that that is actually the consensus of Scientific opinion. It’s not enough to just highlight a single source.

Fair comment. They’re all there below the video, about a dozen scientific papers are cited to back up the original memo’s claims.

TL;DW

Too long: didnt watch

^not how I read it.

TL:DWlols

too long; danger ****?

I’ll be back in 3 hours after I’ve written an algorithm to tell me how I feel about all this.

I just knew from the OP and thread title that somewhere, someone was being unfair to some poor oppressed man. Ostensibly.

If you got fired for writing an internal memo that was scientifically correct…

What is your question?

What is your question?

Is there a point at which the political situation is more important than what the scientific data tells us?

It was pretty clear.

I just knew from the OP and thread title that somewhere, someone was being unfair to some poor oppressed man. Ostensibly.

Well that’s not what I’m doing here nor is it what the original memo was also doing.

What I am doing is challenging the ignorance of people’s views.

The NYT did a good piece on this, if anyone wants a more balanced view of the story…

The science isn’t pretty clear.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2143285-memo-to-all-tech-bros-sexism-not-biology-holds-women-back/

reads like its written by an entitled, rich, silicon-valley nerd.

Apparently theres a glut of those.

The science isn’t pretty clear.

The problem with that piece, just like all the other rebuttal pieces written in response to this, is they all presume the original paper was trying to blame 100% of the gap in tech and leadership on factors other than sexism or biggotry. It’s not; it’s saying that those factors alone might not account for 100% of the gap and MAYBE there are other variables, empirically meausred ones, that might also play a role.

As I inderstand it, his first mistake was offering an off-script opinion when he wasn’t asked for it.

Second was making it official in the form of an internal memo.

As for the “he’s only speaking the truth” argument and how he wasn’t motivated by hate – well he turned down interviews with every mainstream media outlet in favour of a couple of anti-feminists on YouTube.

What I am doing is challenging the ignorance of people’s views.

In which case why aren’t you criticising the author of the memo? His view is the one that appears to be ignorant.
I’ve yet to see any evidence that biology makes men and women better or worse at particular jobs, other than through bias during their formative years at school, and bias from men who believe that engineering, either mechanical or electronic, and maths, are not areas where women have appropriate skills.
Which is bollocks.

Apologies in advance for the straw man argument (why wait till page 3 eh?)

We shall suppose that you can definitively prove women are worse programmers. How do you prove that’s anything to do with biology and not just an impact of social norms present throughout their life?

I imagine for instance that being black in apartheid South Africa probably informed your personality, education etc much more than being a [esp. white] woman, i may of course be wrong about that.

“Do not try and bend the spoon woman, that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth…there is no spoon woman, only another human. Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon woman that bends, it is yourself.”

I’ve yet to see any evidence that biology makes men and women better or worse at particular jobs

That’s a good example of how the argument is either misframed, misrepresented or just not understood.

The data does not suggest this. The data suggests that there is a difference in motivation and interest that arises as a result of gender that lead people to make different choices.

The argument is also not one about biology, that’s not where the data is coming from. It’s about small measurable differences in persnoality traits between men and women. Now these might well be socially constructed and perhaps that is the correct discussion to be had. But the point is that the these differences in things like agreeableness, neurotocism, conscientiousness (all recognised and measurable personality traits) do have an impact on the choices we make.

The argument is, to what degree does choice also play a role in the differences we see in gender representation in certain aspects of work.

We shall suppose that you can definitively prove women are worse programmers.

This is irrelevant since this is not being suggested. This is a good example of how your own bias or prejudice is leading you to mis-read or mis-represent the disucssion.

Have a read of his paper and you’ll see what i mean.

You can’t go bending all these people unless you’re a licensed chiropractor, have you learnt nothing from the Simpsons?

I read the memo.

I see some broad statements backed by Wikipedia links on the topic of psychological differences between men and women. I’m not quite feeling the scientific rigour, and it seems driven entirely by his preconceptions about ‘PC gone mad’ in his employer’s policies.

Copying all of his peers and managers into his polite rant perhaps is the most telling sign that perhaps he doesn’t have the skillset or psychological profile to succeed in one of the world’s biggest corporations.

Then again, Google should know that many of those who end up working in its sector fall partly or wholly into a particular neurological subset, one which may render them at a disadvantage when it comes to some of the less binary, more nuanced areas of gender politics.

Is there a point at which the political situation is more important than what the scientific data tells us?

it’s a political situation because it needs to be, it should not be driven by empirical data.
there is inherent bias in gender selection for different types and levels of job. those are the facts that need to be understood. scientific data in this situation might help to explain why there might be a natural leaning towards a particular gender selection, but pushing science as the agenda does not help at all – it will only be used by people to excuse the current situation and do nothing about it.
employment decisions need to ignore gender – that is the situation. employment decisions are made at an individual level, not a macro level. so making assumptions as to someone’s theoretical competence based on scientific information about a sub-group they happen to be part of is a phallusy (lol).

I see some broad statements backed by Wikipedia links on the topic

The links in the Peterson video on Youtube are largely to scientific papers.

For example, the research that suggests men are interested in things and women are interested in people (I speak as a man who actually contradicts that profile by the way).

Research Paper

was based on sound scientific evidence. It was also very balanced and not motivated by hate or disagreeableness

If you are a sexist moron waiting for confirmation bias to come along them I am sure it is indeed as you describe total balanced proof that men are better than woman., However back in reality its just sexist BS that sexist will jump on to show as “fact – oh look its happening already
thanks to STW very own mans rights activist for bringing this indisputable scientific fact to the attention of us oppressed men

I also have some equally good scientific facts that show darkies are thick and lesbians are ugly man haters PM for me a you tube link to the proper peer reviewed sciencey stuff.

I find the OPs desire to belittle women using “science” as odious as I find the commentator he is defending
IMHO you are a sexist and worse you think its everyone else is one as you think women are different by which you mean lesser.

FWIW I find you generally lucid and intelligent but on this one issue you are tinf foil hat wearing loon who sees sexism everywhere but where it is
I know not what has caused this and I care not but hope you get over it one day

Don’t hold back, Junky. 🙂

there is inherent bias in gender selection for different types and levels of job.

How do you know? How do you know that this is not the result of the population of candidates putting themselves forward for these roles?

How many men are queuing up to be nurses, care workers or nursery/primary school teachers? There aren’t many.

Now we should definitely consider the reasons why that is, in particular to extent to which socialisation might be responsible for these differences in motivations and pre-dispositions for certain roles and paths through life. But to say that it can only be because of selection is both stupid and ignorant. It could ONLY be that if you were 100% sure that every job application had an equal split in male and female candidates and I can’t see any evidence that this is the case.

the research that suggests men are interested in things and women are interested in people (I speak as a man who actually contradicts that profile by the way).

Wow who knew that massive generalisations about the genders were erm generalisations and you could equally find differences within the genders as without
Its also best to not counter the paper you are citing as an authority – god arent men dumb eh and unable to process the simplest of things.

I like the way you try to appear rational and like you could be persuaded:roll:

Better things to do that try and persuade the sexist not to be sexist
Sexist nothing more nothing less

thanks to STW very own mans rights activist

I’m not ashamed of that monika.

I find the OPs desire to belittle women using “science”

Oh FFS sake junky where the hell did I do that?

How do you know? How do you know that this is not the result of the population of candidates putting themselves forward for these roles?

Surely things will never ever change if you take this point of view?? Existing biases just continue forever?

We shall suppose that you can definitively prove women are worse programmers.

This is irrelevant since this is not being suggested. This is a good example of how your own bias or prejudice is leading you to mis-read or mis-represent the disucssion.[/quote]

Am i not right in thinking that his suggestion is, there are somethings to which women are more or less predisposed than men?

Whether that’s programming or being an astronaut isn’t actually relevant (but I’m guessing you knew that) the point is you can’t separate what biology makes of them from what society makes of them.

Look at somewhere like Saudi, do you think that you’d find more or less women on boards, more or less who aspired to be, more or less armed with the education and experience/personality etc to be than, say the UK? Would that be because they’re naturally less suited than women in the UK to doing those things, or because society makes people what they are?

So long as society treats any group of people differently you’ll have no problem finding differences between those people.

Is this the geek version of “I was just telling the truth, what happened to freedom of speech?”

Has anyone used the term ‘victim blaming’ yet?

Surely things will never ever change if you take this point of view

I agree, which is why any argument that I make does not start with ‘we should stop worrying about the differences in representation’. My own personal view is that these problems have existed and will continue to exist and we should do something about them.

However, I also believe, as do a lot of other people, that the differences cannot be 100% explained just by bias. Other factors are important and the danger is that you politicise those factors and you, at best, disuade them from being considered, and at worst (as in this instance) penalise someone for bringing them up.

That’s the route of both facism and prejudice.

Well it’s reassuring to see that the name calling and misrepresentation is well under way and the thread has already descended into a vitriolic argument about whether the science behind James Damore’s memo was right or wrong.

The point of James Damore’s memo was that he (and many of his colleagues) felt as though the corporate culture within Google was an ideological echo chamber which actively suppressed, silenced or eradicated differing opinions even going so far as to posit illegal, or borderline illegal practices when it came to recruitment.

The fact that he was fired for “perpetuating gender stereotypes” certainly reinforces his point.

Regardless of your personal political viewpoints (radical leftist ideologues aside) I think most right thinking open minded people should at least be troubled by the fact that a global organisation with as much power and influence as Google should be so partisan, and yet their morality can always be put to one side if the money’s right ie in China.