> If you haven’t read the memo yourself, give it a read. Are you disagreeing, or are you offended?
Damore's memo made very flimsy scientific arguments, supported uncritically by a couple of studies at best, from a field which is currently undergoing a replication crisis, to make sweeping criticism of a policy widely regarded as beneficial. The disagreement is obvious. The offense is that he would, apparently in good faith, expect people to be convinced by such paltry evidence.
With the author's hunting example, the author has no evidence that 'offence comes first', or even that offence exists at all for the friend in question now that they're an adult.
With the Galileo example, there was no "pretence at disagreement". The church straight-up tried him for heresy. That's nothing to do with offense OR disagreement: it's the church maintaining its authority.
The reason the examples are so weak is because there is no strong dividing line between disagreement and offence. Trying to find one is to pretend people are rational beings when they're not. You can make a pretty good case for "what caused what" (disagreement) or for "self conception and identity" (offence) for each of these, and to attempt to shoehorn them into one or the other position is simply to argue for your own preferences -- but to do so from an imaginary position of scientific legitimacy.
As far as I can tell, the psychology stuff Damore quoted (big five), replicate just fine. What fail are the stuff that we want to be true, e.g. growth mindset.
Wasn’t Damore basically criticizing the premise behind affirmative action? It’s hardly widely regarded as beneficial. Its being rooted out of academia via the courts and the workplace is next.
Damore's memo made very flimsy scientific arguments, supported uncritically by a couple of studies at best, from a field which is currently undergoing a replication crisis, to make sweeping criticism of a policy widely regarded as beneficial. The disagreement is obvious. The offense is that he would, apparently in good faith, expect people to be convinced by such paltry evidence.
With the author's hunting example, the author has no evidence that 'offence comes first', or even that offence exists at all for the friend in question now that they're an adult.
With the Galileo example, there was no "pretence at disagreement". The church straight-up tried him for heresy. That's nothing to do with offense OR disagreement: it's the church maintaining its authority.
The reason the examples are so weak is because there is no strong dividing line between disagreement and offence. Trying to find one is to pretend people are rational beings when they're not. You can make a pretty good case for "what caused what" (disagreement) or for "self conception and identity" (offence) for each of these, and to attempt to shoehorn them into one or the other position is simply to argue for your own preferences -- but to do so from an imaginary position of scientific legitimacy.