
The Google Memo: Four Scientists Respond - mvdwoord
http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/
======
guywhocodes
The activity here correlates very well with the amount of actual citations and
rebuttals of the original document.

It's almost like it's just a massive act of collective misrepresentation, one
of those "winning the narrative" kind of situations.

~~~
vfulco
In other words an extension of the fake news which has been plaguing us for
months now. The truth will set you free.

------
stoobe
In this thread: "I don't agree with what the scientists said so either they're
cherry picked, or bad scientists, or right-wing"

Republicans on global warming: "I don't believe the results so it must be that
scientists don't know what they're talking about or they're biased."

Can I join/found a pro-science party? Anyone want to join?

~~~
candiodari
A pro-science party wouldn't toe even the republican line on many of these
issues and therefore "be racist".

It would say different races have ...

 _shudder_

differences

They might even point out that the difference between men and women, as
measured in DNA differences, is bigger than the differences between humans and
mice. This might result in some actual differences, and likely not just in
appearance.

Nobody seems to want to hear these obvious facts, we've just collectively
agreed that we're going to ignore this and even change the science to reflect
political opinion.

Apparently the message that yes, sexes and races are different, and we've
chosen to ignore that is considered a racist attitude itself.

~~~
stoobe
haha yeah, apparently acknowledging facts about average differences makes one
a racists/bigot/asshole.

my guess is that most people have a hard time distinguishing that statements
about a population distribution do not mean an endorsement stereotyping.

~~~
almost_usual
Google would scout and hire anyone regardless of race or gender if they were
talented enough.

~~~
canoebuilder
They would, "Software is an IQ business." \- Bill Gates

The fact that google is well known for seeking out the most intelligence and
talented, and the fact that Asians and Jews are highly "over-represented"
among googlers if one were to extrapolate a random population sample as being
the only SJW approved workforce, the fact that these two groups are so over-
represented implies that... Jews and Asians tend towards smarter rather than
dumber, which anyone paying attention has kind of noticed.

~~~
tynpeddler
Google isn't looking for the most intelligent and talented people and hiring
them. There are lots of smart people who are not engineers and lack the skills
Google needs. Google is looking for the the most talented people in the group
of people who's interests make them useful to Google. It's an important
distinction, and one that is at the heart of Damore's memo.

------
kkleindev
I believe that PG makes a very interesting point in Hackers and Painters
saying that one shouldn't discuss about whether something is sexist, racist or
offensive but rather just whether it is accurate or not.

~~~
zimpenfish
The problem is that as a rich white dude, he's really not ever going to be on
the receiving end of those things and his "just rise above it" stance
consequently doesn't carry any weight.

~~~
RealityNow
Essentially what you're saying is that, because he's a white male, his opinion
on the matter isn't taken as seriously. In other words, this is a clear case
of sexism/racism.

~~~
dbenhur
Alternatively: his membership in a privileged class is unlikely to grant him
especially accurate insight into the experience of individuals in less
privileged classes, and more likely to reinforce his bias to justify his own
privileged position.

~~~
justin_vanw
Deleting because apparently you can get brigaded and fired for any slightly
dissenting opinion.

------
comex
While it doesn't invalidate the takes, I'd like to point out that this is not
exactly an unbiased selection of scientists. With the possible exception of
David P Schmitt - the one with the relatively moderate take, whose research
was cited in the original memo - they all appear to have at least mildly
right-leaning political beliefs (see below). Also, the site Quilette itself is
quite right-wing, as can be easily determined by looking at the homepage.

Lee Jussim: gave a "talk about left-wing bias in social psychology"
[http://quillette.com/2015/12/04/rebellious-scientist-
surpris...](http://quillette.com/2015/12/04/rebellious-scientist-surprising-
truth-about-stereotypes/)

Geoffrey Miller: note wording of recent tweets, including

\- Compare the actual Google memo to how it's being misrepresented by SJWs,
and you'll see what's wrong in America.

\- My new article for @QuilletteM: a new legal strategy the neurodivergent can
use to fight for free speech on campus.

[https://twitter.com/primalpoly?lang=en](https://twitter.com/primalpoly?lang=en)

and some earlier history that's just kind of bizarre:

[https://closetpuritan.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/diversityisou...](https://closetpuritan.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/diversityisourweakness/)

Debra Soh: wrote a column complaining about censorship at colleges, claiming
"emotional grievances are being prioritized over logic and facts", and
uncritically praising a "free speech" event hosted by Ben Shapiro (of
Breitbart fame) [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-need-to-
protect-f...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-need-to-protect-free-
speech-on-campus/article35476933/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-
need-to-protect-free-speech-on-campus/article35476933/)

~~~
lee12255
With all due respect, the manner of your inferences about our political
beliefs is deeply flawed. Just as one does not need to be a woman to be
concerned about sexism, or African-American to be concerned about racism, or
LGBT to be concerned about homophobia, or Muslim to care about Islamophobia,
one does not need to be a conservative to be concerned about leftist biases
distorting social science.

Psychologists are massively, overwhelmingly, leftwing in their views. I am
most certainly NOT conservative. My best guess is that there were ZERO
conservatives in this group.

For data on the near complete absence of conservatives in psychology, see
Duarte et al, 2015, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

The day that only people on the right care about free speech or unbiased
science is the day that we are all really and truly doomed.

Sincerely,

Lee Jussim

~~~
comex
Hmm. This is a somewhat tricky situation. I did not expect my comment to be
read by the people it mentioned. I feel bad if I misrepresented you, but I am
not sure I really did. I admit the source I had for you was weaker than the
others - but then, if I now investigate further, what I see tends to confirm
that your beliefs, at least on the topic of diversity in general, fall into a
broad category I'd associate with right-wing thinkers.

First of all, it's not just that you're concerned about left-wing bias; it's
something you spend quite a lot of your time on. Looking at your blog on
Psychology Today[1], just about every article is complaining about liberal
bias or liberal beliefs. You're not afraid to use charged language like
"creeping tyranny of the left" or "mirror-image McCarthyism".

This is a bit random, but here's a quote I found especially surprising from
one of your articles:

> So whose level of trust in science is more well-justified? My answer:
> Conservatives. Deep skepticism and even mistrust in science and its
> conclusions are entirely well-justified. If science reveals some "truth,"
> then it should show up again and again and again and again, so that, at some
> point, it becomes (to paraphrase the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay
> Gould) perverse to believe otherwise. Until that time, however, it is not at
> all perverse to believe otherwise. [2]

When it comes to conservative mistrust of science, I'd say there's an elephant
in the room, namely climate change. That is, of course, the biggest issue
where belief in science has become politicized. And when it comes to the
existence of anthropogenic climate change, it became "perverse to believe
otherwise" quite a while ago, yet in the United States conservatives still do;
in fact, increasingly so[3]. It seems absurd not to mention that (which the
article does not, at any point).

But going back to the question of diversity... There is some risk of circular
reasoning here: I claimed your opinion should be taken somewhat more lightly
because you were biased; now I'm claiming that you're biased because you have
a different opinion from me. However, I think the following is meaningful to
the extent that it ties your opinions on the memo to a broader pattern.

One of the entries in your recommended reading list from the 'Four Scientists'
article is a WSJ article you co-wrote with Jonathan Haidt[4]. Broadly
speaking, the article is an appeal to colleges to not do any of the things
liberals want them to do to address social inequality: not just affirmative
action, which is pretty much the same issue as in the Google memo, but also
such measures as diversity training and microaggression training. While the
article cites several different studies at various points, most of the
stronger claims are not supported by such citations. In particular:

Regarding diversity interventions, your article states:

> The evaluations that have been done are not encouraging. A major 2007 review
> of diversity training in corporations concluded that “on average, programs
> designed to reduce bias among managers responsible for hiring and promotion
> have not worked.” A review of diversity interventions published in 2014 in
> the journal Science noted that these programs “often induce ironic negative
> effects (such as reactance or backlash) by implying that participants are at
> fault for current diversity challenges.

But the 2014 review states that "there is promising evidence that several
interventions raise participants' awareness of diversity issues and reduce
explicit and implicit biases." It does criticize the use of non-evidence-based
diversity interventions, but its overall message seems quite counter to your
article's suggestion that diversity training is overall useless or harmful.
(The 2007 review is less so, but it does mention that certain types of
training can have positive effects.)

Your article goes on to criticize microaggression training, stating that
"microaggression training is likely to backfire and increase racial tensions"
and "activates an oppressor-victim narrative", and that "the threshold for
what counts as an offense falls ever lower". But it cites no studies for these
claims, and spends zero words on the potential benefits of such training, i.e.
avoiding the harms caused by microaggressions themselves. It is hard not to
see bias in a piece that concludes the harms outweigh the benefits without
even examining the latter.

The article also defines microaggressions in a rather unfair manner: "The idea
covers everything from asking someone where they are from to questioning the
merits of affirmative action during a classroom discussion." Of course,
"questioning the merits of affirmative action" is not a core example of a
microaggression (which is not to say nobody has ever claimed it to be one, but
still). "Asking someone where they are from" arguably is, but only because of
the tendency for people of certain ethnicities to be inundated with such
questions, even if they were in fact born in the United States (I'm assuming a
U.S. context); this creates the feeling that they're not perceived as real
Americans. While I'd argue it's actually an important type of microaggression,
it's much less obviously sympathetic, from a short description, than other
commonly cited types, and I suspect it was chosen for that reason.

Actually, I wasn't surprised to read something along those lines. When I first
read your Quilette article, where Jonathan Haidt shows up as well (as the
author of one of the books you recommend), the name jumped out at me. I'd
heard of him as a coauthor of "The Coddling of the American Mind"[5], a well-
known article I find quite infuriating for, among other things, purporting to
diagnose liberals with (effectively) a psychological condition, pooh-poohing
PTSD, and, more relevantly, taking an extremely one-sided view of
microaggressions. I don't know if he was also the driving force behind the
section of the WSJ article about microaggressions, but you put your name on it
in any case.

Meh... I could go on, but I'm not sure I'm making a useful argument to anyone
other than myself. After all, it's unlikely that anyone will read this other
than perhaps you, Lee Jussim, and I hardly expect to convince you that you're
biased! But maybe you can at least see where I'm coming from.

FWIW, I care a lot about free speech, and I'm troubled by the scarcity of
people who vigorously defend conservatives' ability to express their views
_without_ actually agreeing with those views. I kinda wish I could consider
you one of them, but I don't think I can; regardless of what you consider
yourself, from my perspective you seem pretty far to the right on social
issues.

[1] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-
rouser?page=2](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser?page=2)

[2] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-
rouser/201304/co...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-
rouser/201304/conservatives-distrust-science-are-they-right-do-so)

[3] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/republican-
le...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/republican-leaders-
climate-change.html?_r=0)

[4] [http://www.businessforum.com/WSJ_Race-on-
Campus-05-06-2016.p...](http://www.businessforum.com/WSJ_Race-on-
Campus-05-06-2016.pdf)

[5] [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-
cod...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-
the-american-mind/399356/)

~~~
alphapapa
Your criticism of Jussim is rooted in the claim that he is biased; and in so
doing, you implicitly claim that you are unbiased. This is necessary,
otherwise how would you be qualified to criticize him for being biased?

So then: are you unbiased? Obviously you are not, for you are obviously biased
against conservative/right views.

Therefore, how are you qualified to criticize him for being biased? Your
criticism rings hollow.

Then, despite the inherent self-contradiction of your reasoning, you exhibit a
moment of insight:

> There is some risk of circular reasoning here: I claimed your opinion should
> be taken somewhat more lightly because you were biased; now I'm claiming
> that you're biased because you have a different opinion from me.

This should have been the end of your comment. The next line should have been,
"This is obviously irrational, and therefore my criticism of you is as well.
Therefore, I will now stop and reevaluate my position from first principles."

But instead, you doubled-down, following the pattern of those who got the man
fired, essentially confirming his argument.

~~~
comex
> Your criticism of Jussim is rooted in the claim that he is biased; and in so
> doing, you implicitly claim that you are unbiased. This is necessary,
> otherwise how would you be qualified to criticize him for being biased?

I don't think anyone is truly unbiased, although some people are more biased
than others. I did not mean to claim that I was less biased than Jussim.

I was actually trying to make a much simpler point. An article titled "Four
Scientists Respond", addressing a topic that is not itself part of academia,
suggests at least a possibility that the responses are representative of most
scientists' views (more precisely, the views of most scientists with relevant
experience). When three of the four responses are largely in agreement with
each other, one might imagine that their position is the consensus of
scientists, and thus arguably of science itself, with its associated cachet
and authority. Indeed, if the scientists had somehow been chosen randomly, it
would be quite significant that there was such a level of agreement. But they
were not.

Indeed, the question of what it means to be "conservative" is to some extent a
distraction. I could have said it much more simply: The three scientists in
question (those other than Schmitt) have all written columns in the past
criticizing liberal orthodoxy as stifling. Among scientists with relevant
experience, even those that write opinion pieces, I'd assume most have not
written about that specific subject. Therefore, those three are very likely to
be an unrepresentative sample.

Please note that I'm not claiming Quilette did anything wrong. They said four
scientists, and they quoted four scientists. Those individual opinions _do_
come with more inherent authority than a random Joe's, due to their authors'
having some understanding of the relevant research in connection with their
work; it is just that they fall short of actually representing science.
Besides, a frequent reader of Quilette would be aware of their bias as an
outlet, and wouldn't expect a representative sample in the first place. (I
hope it is not controversial that Quilette has a bias; to be clear, this is
not inherently bad.) It is not their fault that they were linked to out of
context on HN. But by the same token it is appropriate to point out that
context.

Anyway, I could have left it at 'criticized, therefore unrepresentative' in my
followup comment, but by then I had claimed that Jussim (along with the
others) was conservative and been called out on it; while I felt bad about the
possibility of having made a false accusation, I also wanted to defend my
point, after investigating further and deciding it hadn't been false.

> This should have been the end of your comment. The next line should have
> been, "This is obviously irrational, and therefore my criticism of you is as
> well. Therefore, I will now stop and reevaluate my position from first
> principles."

> But instead, you doubled-down, following the pattern of those who got the
> man fired, essentially confirming his argument.

I was attempting to be upfront about the potential weaknesses of my argument,
something which I believe helps advance rational discourse. From your tone in
these paragraphs, I am not sure you have the same humility.

------
Pilfer
I had trouble loading the webpage. Here is a mirror/cached copy.

[https://archive.is/VlNfl](https://archive.is/VlNfl)

------
dvfjsdhgfv
This article is a pleasure to read. Clear arguments and discussions to the
point. A complete opposite of what many, if not most, commentators say.

------
ad_hominem
> _I think it’s really important to discuss this topic scientifically, keeping
> an open mind and using informed skepticism when evaluating claims about
> evidence._

> ...

> _There have been (and likely will continue to be) many socio-structural
> barriers to women working in technological jobs. These include culturally-
> embedded gender stereotypes, biased socialization practices, in some
> cultures explicit employment discrimination, and a certain degree of
> masculinization of technological workplaces._

Well that didn't last long

~~~
EddieRingle
The top sentence is followed by three full paragraphs you clipped out. Only
then do we reach the bottom statement you've quoted, albeit in the source is
prefaced with the following:

> Now, treating people as dichotomous sexes is exactly what many affirmative
> action policies do. As this is not my area of expertise, I can only offer my
> non-expert opinion on this issue, which is this: There have been (and likely
> will continue to be) many socio-structural barriers to women working in
> technological jobs. ...

------
hackcasual
You can find 4 scientists who'll tell you global warming is a hoax. Just find
one who can take this manifesto, provide a thoughtful analysis, collect
published critiques and discuss and argue them.

This just seems to be a few modestly credentialed academics really just using
this as a springboard for their own view points.

~~~
averagewall
Even without credentials, has anyone at all shown any part of the manifesto to
be false yet?

~~~
hackcasual
[https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-
man...](https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-
manifesto-1e3773ed1788)

~~~
EddieRingle
> I’m not going to spend any length of time on (1); if anyone wishes to
> provide details as to how nearly every statement about gender in that entire
> document is actively incorrect,¹ and flies directly in the face of all
> research done in the field for decades, they should go for it. But I am
> neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that
> to someone else.

~~~
hackcasual
Yes? He's admitting he doesn't have the expertise to address that. Evo-psych
is definitely not a generally accepted scientific field, so I don't really
take issue with his off hand dismissal.

~~~
carapat_virulat
As far as I understood the original manifesto was about the average population
characteristics of currently existing men and women, so those studies
shouldn't have anything to do with Evo-psych, I mean they would be valid even
if evolution didn't exist.

~~~
stagbeetle
There was a passing mention of evolutionary psychology in one of the points
where the author was explaining other reasons for the gender disparity.

------
mostlyferal
Here is the very first empirical claim (other than describing the memo) in the
scientists' responses:

> In 1960, the most common slurs were insulting labels for demographic groups.
> In 2017, the most common slurs involve labelling anyone who you disagree
> with on issues such as affirmative action, diversity, gaps, and inequality
> as a racist, sexist, homophobe, or bigot.

Citation? I suspect that this is wildly wrong, but unlike this scientist, I'd
want to see the data first.

~~~
redblacktree
From the other side, the slur seems to be "SJW." (Social Justice Warrior)

------
peter_retief
So its come down to banning dissent, firing people who say what they feel or
believe. There is only one issue here and that is people must have the right
to express an opinion without being punished so bear in mind this quote
"Monsieur l’abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie pour
que vous puissiez continuer à écrire." And remember that they first burn the
books then they burn the people

------
gasull
Cache link because it is down for me at the moment:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/quillette.com/201...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-
memo-four-scientists-respond/)

------
yawaramin
The site seems to be experiencing the 'hug of death' right now, Internet
Archive link:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/http://quillette....](https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-
memo-four-scientists-respond/)

Prof. Schmitt gets it right here: gender differences don't have any
significant impact on women's capacity to perform any job--even physically
strenuous jobs, with the right training. Certainly for information work,
bringing up gender differences is just going down the wrong rabbit hole. It's
like asking a job candidate if they're American when all you need to know is
if they're legally authorised to work in the US.

The other scientists unfortunately go down this rabbit hole. Prof. Miller
especially consistently asks the wrong questions throughout his piece. First,
he establishes biological sex differences but doesn't ask if they have any
significant impact on women's capacity to perform a job. Second, he goes off
on a tangent about his pet 'paradox' theory about the American public, arguing
that gender equality would make diversity moot from a business advantage
perspective.

Let's just clarify why we want diversity in the workplace: it's not because
minorities will bring different skills and traits to the table; it's because
(a) excluding minorities is inhumane, and (b) because minorities will
(hopefully) keep the organisation from making dumb mistakes like leaving out
the main protagonist of their new film series from a major marketing campaign
( [https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15960372/hasbro-star-
wars...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15960372/hasbro-star-wars-
monopoly-toys-wheresrey-insufficient-interest) ), sending Kylie Jenner out
with a Pepsi to mend race relations ( [http://time.com/4726500/pepsi-ad-
kendall-jenner/](http://time.com/4726500/pepsi-ad-kendall-jenner/) ), and
pushing for a Game of Thrones-style show about a modern-day Confederate
America which won the war and kept slavery intact (
[https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/no...](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/no-
confederate/535512/) ). These are just three things that come _immediately_ to
mind, you can imagine how much shit there is out there that hasn't even
reached national level yet.

~~~
ad_hominem
> _gender differences don 't have any significant impact on women's capacity
> to perform any job--even physically strenuous jobs, with the right training_

That seems just plain wrong considering so many women fail Marine fitness
tests:

[http://thehill.com/policy/defense/284252-report-6-out-
of-7-f...](http://thehill.com/policy/defense/284252-report-6-out-of-7-female-
recruits-fail-new-marines-fitness-test-for-combat)

And FDNY had to relax physical fitness requirements in order to hire more
women firefighters:

[https://www.bustle.com/articles/53536-fdny-wants-more-
women-...](https://www.bustle.com/articles/53536-fdny-wants-more-women-
firefighters-but-is-cutting-strength-requirements-the-way-to-do-it)

Women also have to be separated from men in professional sports, otherwise in
many sports it wouldn't even be close (e.g. the aged, #203-ranked male tennis
player walloping both Williams sisters in their prime:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karsten_Braasch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karsten_Braasch)).

There's nothing wrong with admitting there are basic biological differences
between men and women relating to strength.

~~~
yawaramin
Sure. That's why I said women are _capable_ of performing those jobs. Some
women _pass_ the Marine fitness tests and firefighter physical requirements.
Hence, women are capable of performing any physically strenuous job.

But again, this is completely the wrong rabbit hole in the context of this
discussion. It has nothing to do with the fact that men and women have equal
capacity to do any mental work.

~~~
learningram
Capability to do work does not mean you have the same qualifications to raise
your level and become the cream of the crop...ie raises or promotions.

You are the one digging the wrong rabbit hole here.

~~~
yawaramin
By 'qualifications', what do you mean? Like professional accreditations? If
so, all the more reason to help women and minorities by giving them the
opportunities to earn those accreditations!

But if you mean 'innate ability to reach a higher level', then are you
implying that women innately are incapable of climbing to the same senior
engineering positions as men, and no amount of training or education will
change that?

Just trying to understand.

~~~
learningram
I am not sure what you call this style of arguments ? You are deviating from
my point and intention.

Lets take GPA for example. Do you think 2 people getting a GPA of 3.0 are of
the exact same knowledge level ? Is it possible that one has the equivalent
score of 3.13 and the other has 2.87 and that they were both normalized to 3 ?
Same thing with the jobs. Maybe you see this at your job too. There are going
to be people more skilled at what you do and people less skilled at what you
do but still pulling the same salary. The salary you earn is an approximate
estimate of your skill measure but not an measure of your exact skill.

------
bartof303
I think the obvious point that the authors missed is that Google is not a
University nor a scientific journal. It's a workplace and the author of the
memo, just called into question the "biological" ability of women to be
engineers.

~~~
koonsolo
Have you read the memo? He does not do that. He talks plenty about averages,
and explicitly mentions that averages don't apply to individuals.

Here is some news for you: The AVERAGE woman is not interested in technology
as much as the AVERAGE man. If you think reality is sexist, so be it.

Does that mean that every woman is average? No. There are plenty of women
interested in technology doing great work.

So why do you expect that there should be as many women working in technology
as men? Why is it even a (US) problem?

------
imaginenore
Good fact-based answers.

But the reaction from the "progressives" is quite telling. Don't they realize
that demanding to fire him without refuting his arguments only proves him
right?

~~~
casefields
Well he's now been fired.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-
fi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-
employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo)

~~~
jacknews
“The company was founded under the principles of freedom of expression,
diversity, inclusiveness and science-based thinking,”

Clearly, this is either not entirely correct, or they have "evolved"

~~~
thick7in
Actually, fwiw, the company was founded under the principle "do no evil", but
they already walked that back before this incident.

------
stoobe
Mirror: [https://archive.is/VlNfl](https://archive.is/VlNfl)

------
mjg59
Four scientists with no expertise in the field of diversity and, as a result,
in no position to argue that the scientific argument made justifies the
conclusions drawn (as one of them admits).

A scientific argument is more than "Here's some science, here are some facts
and here's the conclusion" \- you have to use the science to explain the
observed facts, and doing so takes more than saying "And therefore". There was
no attempt to do so whatsoever, and so (from a scientific perspective) this
was junk.

~~~
true_religion
There has to be a more charitable explanation than your implied "four
scientists don't know how to do science properly" thesis.

Is diversity honestly so narrow a field, that a social psychologist,
personality psychologists, evolutionary psychology, and a sexual
neuroscientist are in _no_ position to say _anything_?

Gender diversity always seems to bring up two issues (1) are men and women
different in mental reasoning, and if so where and how significant are these
differences and (2) would differences in mental reasoning lead to different
outcomes in choice of studies or employment?

Is there a specific scientific field for that?

~~~
mjg59
> There has to be a more charitable explanation than your implied "four
> scientists don't know how to do science properly" thesis.

Indeed - one of them knows how to.

> Is diversity honestly so narrow a field, that a social psychologist,
> personality psychologists, evolutionary psychology, and a sexual
> neuroscientist are in no position to say anything?

Unless they've done any research in it, sure. Why should any of them have more
insight into diversity than, say, a nuclear physicist?

The issue isn't whether there are gender-related differences that are relevant
to the job. It's not even whether those are significant enough to result in a
measurable difference in outcome. It's whether those factors are the primary
reason for the observed disparity, and neither the document author or the
quoted scientists present any evidence whatsoever that that's the case.
Failing to do that means that the conclusions drawn (ie, that existing
diversity initiatives discriminate against men while providing no benefit to
the company) aren't scientific.

~~~
stoobe
Those scientists specifically studied gender differences so they can at least
confirm the Google author was actually correct in his factual claims.

Where anyone can disagree is how he interprets them, but I am glad to see four
experts clarify a little bit about what is true.

~~~
mjg59
They can confirm that he was correct in a subset of his factual claims, but
not in the further factual claims that he builds on those. Implying that they
can is bad science.

~~~
stoobe
Perhaps I misread it, but it sounded like all the gender differences he
claimed were backed by research. What were the factual claims he got wrong?

~~~
yawaramin
Also, even if the gender differences were backed by research, what's _not_
backed by research is the assumption that those differences have any
significant impact on women's capacity to perform the same work as men.
Remember--the scientific method is about making a _falsifiable hypothesis_ and
then gathering enough evidence to be able to reject it. In this case the
falsifiable hypothesis would have to be that men and women have no significant
difference in their ability to perform the same work.

~~~
renaudg
Strawman. Nobody and especially not the memo made a claim about capacity. It
was all about interest on average, which is absolutely backed by research :

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/)

Abstract : "There is considerable interest in understanding women’s
underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
careers. Career choices have been shown to be driven in part by interests, and
gender differences in those interests have generally been considered to result
from socialization. We explored the contribution of sex hormones to career-
related interests, in particular studying whether prenatal androgens affect
interests through psychological orientation to Things versus People. We
examined this question in individuals with congenital adrenal hyperplasia
(CAH), who have atypical exposure to androgens early in development, and their
unaffected siblings (total N = 125 aged 9 to 26 years). Females with CAH had
more interest in Things versus People than did unaffected females, and
variations among females with CAH reflected variations in their degree of
androgen exposure.

 _Results provide strong support for hormonal influences on interest in
occupations characterized by working with Things versus People_."

~~~
yawaramin
OK, in the paper you linked to presumably they've classified IT/CS jobs as
'thing-oriented' work. Now, let's classify them as 'people-oriented'. Whoops!
Suddenly women are _very_ interested.

You see the problem? The study is biased from the outset because it's
_designed_ to 'prove' that women aren't interested in IT.

~~~
renaudg
> The study is biased from the outset because it's designed to 'prove' that
> women aren't interested in IT.

No, the study was designed to investigate a potential link between prenatal
androgen exposure and a preference for Things vs People work, which it did
find.

> let's classify [IT/CS] as 'people-oriented'. Whoops! Suddenly women are very
> interested.

But precisely, observation shows they're not, as a group ! That's the very
thing we're here discussing, trying to find out why.

And yeah, let's just arbitrarily switch jobs classifications like that without
any grounding in reality, just because that's the only way your hypothesis
will not fall apart.

Can you see the extraordinary amount of unlikely premises it takes for your
logic to stand, compared to the alternative, simpler explanation ? That is
exactly the kind of situation Occam's razor is here for : "among competing
hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected."

This is starting to feel like a flat-earth debate, honestly. I'm pretty sure
many people here would engage with the available evidence much more candidly,
if this were a less politically charged topic (and I'm a liberal. But science
before ideology, always.)

~~~
yawaramin
'Arbitrarily' switch job classifications? Sorry, what is the reality grounding
of classifying IT jobs as 'thing-oriented'? It seems about as scientific as
the zodiac. Tell me, if you're a programmer, how much time do you spend
communicating with people versus actually coding? How much time reading and
writing documentation? Choosing variable and class names to communicate your
code's intentions?

Can you see how classifying IT jobs as something women aren't interested in,
leads to finding a 'result' that women aren't interested in IT jobs? That's
literally a tautology.

