
Why Men Don’t Believe the Data on Gender Bias in Science - alannallama
https://www.wired.com/story/why-men-dont-believe-the-data-on-gender-bias-in-science
======
mpweiher
Because the data shows something else entirely and is always misrepresented.

For example, the lab manager study that's quoted was for a lab manager in
_psychology_. Which actually has greater female than male representation.
Minor detail. Oh, and the effect could only be reproduced if the fake
applicants were both (a) mediocre and (b) exactly equally qualified.

Whereas Ceci and Williams found a 2:1 hiring advantage _for_ women in STEM,
with a much larger and to the best of my knowledge also much more careful
study.

Facts. Matter.

~~~
pron
> For example, the lab manager study that's quoted was for a lab manager in
> psychology.

Actually it wasn't. Quote, "A broad, nationwide sample of biology, chemistry,
and physics professors (n = 127) evaluated the application materials of an
undergraduate science student who had ostensibly applied for a science
laboratory manager position."

> Which actually has greater female than male representation. Minor detail.

It is a minor detail, even if the study really were about psychology lab
assistants, which it isn't, because the hypothesis isn't about total
participation but about bias. Participation numbers alone don't tell you about
bias. That's like Tucker Carlson, who recently asked how NFL owners can be
racist if 70% of their players are black.

> Facts. Matter.

But George Washington was the first president of the United States! Facts.
Matter. Only, it's kind of hard to see _how_ they matter unless you understand
the issue you're commenting on and the hypothesis those facts ostensibly
support. You seem to be under the impression that the problem is simply the
number of women in various arbitrary professions. I understand how someone
would come to that conclusion if they only read headlines. It isn't the issue,
however, it isn't the hypothesis, and therefore you'll keep bringing up facts
that don't really matter for the subject that's _actually_ discussed, rather
than the one you _think_ is being discussed. This is because you don't really
care about what the issue is; you just decided it was wrong based on some gut
feeling you may have.

~~~
mpweiher
> Participation numbers alone don't tell you about bias

Well, if "bias is the answer, what was the question?" is your "scientific"
approach, then they obviously don't matter. However, it turns out that neither
chemistry nor physics are "tech" and the gender ratios in the physical
sciences are fairly even (even for chemistry, slight male skew for physics
last I checked).

Add in psychology, and using this study as a proxy for engineering or tech is
just malpractice. Which means par for the course for gender "studies".

Anyway, it looks like people have a bias for the underrepresented gender in a
particular field, as the following study shows:

"The team found a bias in favor of women in math, physics, and philosophy,
which increased with the degree of male domination in the field"

"They found about a 10 percent bias in favor of female test takers in the non-
gender–blind oral tests in math, physics, and philosophy. The opposite was
true for fields where men are traditionally underrepresented: The team found a
3 percent to 5 percent bias in favor of male oral test takers in literature
and foreign languages"

[http://www.the-
scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46681/...](http://www.the-
scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46681/title/Slight-Female-Bias-in-
French-Science-Teacher-Exams/)

Which is kind of what you would expect humans to do (slightly favor the group
that is underrepresented), and surprise, that is in fact what humans do.

And when the underrepresentation is stronger, the bias _for_ the
underrepresented population increases, see the 2:1 hiring advantage for _for_
women for tenure track positions in STEM found by Ceci/Wiliams. Stronger
effect, much larger sample, more careful study, much less quoted than the "lab
manager" one, which to remind everyone only saw an effect for _mediocre_
candidates (so people you didn't want to hire in the first place) that were
calibrated to be exactly equally qualified.

~~~
pron
> However, it turns out that neither chemistry nor physics are "tech" and the
> gender ratios in the physical sciences are fairly even (even for chemistry,
> slight male skew for physics last I checked).

I don't understand what it is that you're arguing.

> And when the underrepresentation is stronger

Again, I don't think you understand what the topic is, so I don't see the
relevance of your citations. What kind of bias do you think we're talking
about?

Even though I hate doing this (b/c if you haven't bothered clicking through
the links I posted, then you're not interested in the subject), but just to
break the monotony of repeatedly pointing out the absurdity of debating a
subject you know little about and wish to learn of even less, let me give the
elevator-pitch summary:

 _It is not about participation in arbitrary professions; it is not about bias
in tests; it is not about biological differences; it is about the easily
verified fact that women have been marginalized from positions of power[1] at
least for centuries. Test scores have little to do with power; Participation
in being psychology lab assistants has little to do with power; bias in
promotion in certain power-conferring occupation has a lot to do with power._

Studies in the field may, therefore, focus on two things: either on the status
or process of said power imbalance, or on the mechanism of its creation. The
paper which is the focus of this article (the last one), is of the second
kind.

Next you're going to show me research showing bias in favor of women when it
comes to smiling. That may be nice, but is not relevant to the discussion.

If you show me research showing how socitey confers more power on women than
men, then that would be something to consider.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_\(social_and_political\))

~~~
belorn
It is very convenient and easy to define the problem as historical as you
don't need to prove anything. Linking to an Wikipedia article that do not says
the statement you want to quote is also a nice touch for an article about
science.

There is a correlation between hight and power, where people of less hight has
been marginalized from positions of power[1] at least for as the written
history.

So in a satirical statement, I will now make a scientific claim that bias in
promotion of people with less hight is the problem and thus people should be
given special shoes during the hiring process in order to solve the problem.
No need to bring data other than the historical proof. Science is done here.

If you show me research showing how socitey confers more power to people of
smaller hight, then that would be something to consider. Only that data is
worthy of consideration, and as you can't do that, we can just conclude that I
am right and you are wrong.

[1]: [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-
families/...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-
families/health-news/tall-people-more-likely-to-be-successful-in-life-study-
find-a6919431.html)

~~~
pron
> Linking to an Wikipedia article that do not says the statement you want to
> quote is also a nice touch for an article about science.

Oh, I linked to other articles, too, in my discussion with mpweiher on another
thread.

> where people of less hight has been marginalized from positions of power[1]
> at least for as the written history.

That may well be, and perhaps that problem needs addressing, but there is a
question of extent. Women have been marginalized to a far greater extent than
short people. You find many more short men in positions of power than you find
women.

> If you show me research showing how socitey confers more power to people of
> smaller hight, then that would be something to consider. Only that data is
> worthy of consideration, and as you can't do that, we can just conclude that
> I am right and you are wrong.

There are literally mountains of evidence for the marginalization of women. A
1-minute Google-scholar search will confirm that. Just a few highlights: until
recently, women weren't allowed to vote; they weren't allowed to join many
professions; they weren't allowed to study or encouraged not to; they couldn't
even control property unless in special circumstances. That has been going on
for _centuries_. Like with blacks after slavery, the removal of _legal_
barriers did not change the power imbalance over night. It took decades of
political action to get a higher representation of women in politics,
management and academia, and the struggle has been largely successful. For
example, you can find research from 20-30 years ago showing that boys do
better at math than girls (hinting at a biological difference), yet that
difference has now largely disappeared. Let me just link a few introductory
Wikipedia articles:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_education)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_medicine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_medicine)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_law)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_government)

~~~
belorn
Unless you missed the sarcasm tag completely, you can't use history to define
what causes segregation. It don't stand up to the scientific method, it create
circular logic, and its frankly lazy.

First establish a theory. Then use theory to predict the world. Show data that
support that given a starting point and a influence you end up with data
similar to current, and then address potential problems. Finally compare the
theory to other theories that also can correctly predict and see which one is
better. Only if all fails should you get into camps and start the ideological
battle like the one you are doing, in which reason can be thrown out and
people can just shout at each other until a unified theory can be created and
the battle lines can be silently be forgotten.

~~~
mpweiher
You're forgetting that this is feminist/gender theory. So
logic/reason/facts/data do not apply, they are just tools of the oppressor.

~~~
pron
Is that assessment based on your actual study of mainstream feminist theory
(do you even know what it is?) or just something you've read on some blog
written by someone who also hasn't actually studied the subject? Seriously,
how can you make such bold assertions on a topic you know nothing about? Does
it make any sense to you to form your opinion of a subject based on false
information given by others who do not know the subject? Where's the
logic/reason/facts/data in that?

So far, you're the one who tried to contradict the validity of the examples
I've provided with claims that are factually incorrect (re how women got the
vote) or with hypotheses that are easily dismissed (that women marginalization
is no more than a manifestation of the marginalization of short people), as I
clearly demonstrated. So what exactly (other than common myths about
mainstream feminism) makes you think that I'm less rigorous?

~~~
mpweiher
> actual study of mainstream feminist theory

Yes, and interactions with proponents of said theory. And I understand the
difference between a religion and science. You obviously do not.

~~~
pron
> Yes

What feminist theory have you studied?

> with proponents of said theory

That you call those scholars "proponents" makes me pretty certain you don't
know what that theory _is_ [1], but were those interactions full of personal
insults and arguments based on ignorance?

> You obviously do not.

What makes you say that? Being so rigorous, can you point to where I confuse
the two?

What truly boggles the mind is how someone who professes to respect rigor can
debate a subject they know absolutely nothing about. Forget familiarity with
methodology or finidings -- you are clearly unfamiliar even with the research
_questions_ [2].

I get the sense that you're instinctively objecting not any actual arguments
made, but arguments that you believe are made due to a false portrayal of
feminism you may have been exposed to.

And, BTW, what _is_ your hypothesis? That there is no social marginalization
of women? If that's your (quite extraordinary) claim, the burden of proof at
this point in time (i.e., given the extensive research of the past few
decades) should be on you. If you wish to dismiss this extensive research,
you'll have to do better than repeat the same tired hundred-years-old (at
least!) quips about feminists being "illogical" and the like.

[1]: Answer: Feminist theory is the name given to the cross-disciplinary study
-- in history, sociology, anthropology, literature and others -- of gender
inequality. Therefore, I am not sure what you mean by "proponents" in this
case. People interested in studying this issue as opposed to, say, you? If you
are not interested, how can you debate this at all?

[2]: The question of nature vs. nurture when it comes to gender differences is
_not_ one of the research questions, and is largely orthogonal, though
intersects at times. In other words, the claim that cognitive biological
differences between the sexes are nonexistent or even necessarily small is
_not_ a claim made by me, or, to the best of my knowledge, by mainstream
feminist scholarship

------
belorn
> These lawsuits highlight the real reason for the lack of women in science

In an article about science, a claim like that without strong support is in
very bad taste. If you want to prove causation, you should at least first
prove correlation. If we measure how much an industry believes that a specific
gender is suitable for the job, do we get a correlated number for gender
segregation? For an assertive statement that we have now found a scientific
proof for the real underlying reason for gender segregation, such question
should be easily answered.

------
gamechangr
"One paper found ....instead the male faculty favored fake research".

Who cares what one paper found?

That's not proof. There are 10,000 papers on both sides.

