Science won't be able to answer that question ever. The reason being is that success in the workplace and getting promoted is a very multi-faceted thing based on many many inputs. Personality traits that could be tied to genetics might be one of them, but how do you factor in all the other variables that embody a person? What this guy (and you through extension) are trying to do is limit people's success by their genetics by bringing that out and discounting things like values, education, work ethic, belief systems, IQ, emotional intelligence, life experience and so on and so forth. Science can never control for many of these things as they are not variables that are easy to isolate or quantify. So even if there is some truth the only value of doing this is to be used for discriminatory practices.
that being female somehow limits your ability to get hired and grow in the tech industry. that statistics that show a limited number of females in that industry are most certainly because white males are trying to keep those pesky women down....
You've gotta understand that small minded people believe that if there's not equality of outcome the ONLY explanation for it has to be some form of bigotry....unless the inequity is in the favor of groups they want to have that kind of advantage. There's really no reasoning with people like that.
I have a number of points I'd like to make, but I'd really like to just get a straight answer to this question first: Now, if "science" does eventually answer the question and it turns out that a man is statistically more likely than a woman to get into programming or get promoted in a company that is structured as companies today are structured, due to innate differences, does that justify a man feeling that he must be a better candidate than a woman by virtue of his male-ness? Yes or No?
You are asking a nonsensical question as this isn't the purpose of science to extrapolate in this way. It's a contrived hypothetical. As for the second part - is there ever a reason that someone should feel they are a better candidate for a job because of their male-ness? And my answer is no. Because there are better measures of performance then sex that allow for the best to rise.
This is a very basic moral question (not a scientific one), and it is both valid and important. You've already conceded the validity of the hypothetical with "So even if there was some truth". Thank you. Of course the answer is no, and the reason is that you judge individuals by their qualifications or performance, not sex-based statistics. Talking about or looking at sex differences to increase understanding of aggregate trends has no bearing on how individual men and women should be judged. Hence, your argument that I'm using it to justify discrimination is pure speculation on your end, and does not at all follow from the arguments I've been making (or the arguments in the memo). You contradict yourself by suggesting otherwise. On to the rest: Your position that the question is somehow unanswerable is interesting, but I am not convinced of that. The fact is, however difficult it might be to answer definitively, it is still a legitimate subject for discussion (with evidence) and debate if we are serious about understanding the reasons for gender/race representation disparity in various occupational domains and effectively contending with it. You are assuming intent that by trying to openly discuss this issue one must must be trying to justify gender discrimination. I understand why you would think that. We have to consider context here, and there is a history of men justifying their own discrimination/bias/oppression against women on claims that they are inherently the weaker sex. And that exists today as well. I do not discount this. However, I will stress that understanding the nature of a problem through open debate is a morally neutral endeavor. What we do with that understanding may or may not be (Skepticism may be warranted, but firing someone on a presumption of their intent, when they expressly deny such intent in their writing, I do not agree with.). How might trying to gain some understanding about this be used for reasons beyond discrimination? One could use that understanding to deny that discrimination exists or that claims of discrimination are exaggerated. You may strongly object to that conclusion and on those grounds you can be displeased, but that's not grounds to fire someone (and, of course, Google did not and could not offer this as the reason they fired him). You respond, instead, by explaining why you don't agree with their views or why the overall evidence points in the other direction. Or one could use it to more effectively attract girls to computer science or make the Google/tech workplace a better fit for women, in the interest of promoting more diversity in tech. If innate differences do exist, on the average, that are relevant to the disparity (entirely plausible, even if it isn't easy to tease out information about it), why would someone who actually cares about getting more woman in tech not want to understand as much as they can about this? Or one could use it simply to satisfy their curiosity on the human condition and what it means to be male vs female. Is it not the case that in other animal species we do perceive differences in socialization between males and females and that they are not interchangeable? Why should we presume it is different for the human species? That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't build societies that push back against constraining gender roles in the interest of allowing each individual to pursue their potential to the fullest. I fully support that. But refusing to ask questions about or acknowledge aspects of our human nature is something I don't understand and can't get behind. Re "Personality traits that could be tied to genetics might be one of them, ..." You do realize that him suggesting just the above is ostensibly why he was fired? His claim was they "may partially explain" them. Doesn't sound at all different from what you just wrote there. Re "What this guy (and you through extension) are trying to do is limit people's success by their genetics" "Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.” (Pinker, The Blank Slate) I have repeatedly said that individuals should not be limited by evidence on average male vs female traits, and yet you persist with that accusation. You are asking a very good question on how much biology-based personality traits matter in the end. I honestly don't know, but I don't think getting some sort of estimate is necessarily beyond the reach of our capacity, as you do.
@durvasa We both agree is should not matter - then why is this guy wanting to discuss it and suggest that it might matter? For what purpose but to suggest that he is being robbed? That's the problem with his whole thing. It's just a way of repackaging sexist views into something that is trying to be scientific but it is not. That's my problem with it. Workplace should always be about performance. Science doesn't tell us that women are less capable in any way. Personality differences shouldn't be extrapolated this way because it shouldn't matter. To say that the reason women may not be getting promoted is because of biological reasons is more than offending women's feelings - it's telling them they might be inferior - and that's why even conservative women spoke out against him.
If one reads the memo -- and takes it at face value -- it is clear what the purpose is: (1) conservatives are being robbed, (2) some men are being robbed, (3) diversity training should be modified to account for other factors besides discrimination/bias that could account for unequal representation. You can disagree strongly with all 3. But Google says he's allowed to express each of those views, and he was not (officially) fired for doing so. It comes back to him pointing out that there may be biological differences between men and women. In your last post, you accepted that it might be the case, but you don't think it matters. Fine -- then why should he be fired for stating it? You say because it's telling them they might be inferior. I don't agree that's the implication at all, but I won't bore you by rehashing that discussion. We're left with he committed the sin of offending women's feelings. As I've written, if in the end that's what it boils down to and you think that justifies him being fired, I can only shrug and say "fair enough, but I disagree."
Again you think this is about hurting people's feelings but it is about marginalizing women at a place of employment by suggesting they "may" not be biologically suited to succeed. That creates a hostile workplace as women can not trust him to be treated equally. You can see it another way but it's clear and even you admit that he is saying that "may" be the case. Trying to use science as your justification (incorrectly) for being sexist doesn't make you not sexist. I am sorry you can not see this
The problem here is that you're grouping all woman into a single bucket with the inference "They may not be biologically suited to succeed." It may be true that some women aren't "biologically suited". It would be just as true that some men aren't "biologically suited". It is a distortion to generalize it as women aren't biologically suited while men are. There simply is too much intra-group diversity and too much inter-group overlap for that to make any sense whatsoever. The suggestion is only that the percentages could differ to some degree because the average personality profiles differ, entirely plausible. A recalibration of how computer science is taught or how the Google workplace is structured may offset this potential difference -- if that is one's prerogative. To assume this factor doesn't exist strikes me as a strangely incurious position for people who profess to care about the diversity problem and its origins.
Best critique I've read yet of the memo: https://www.wired.com/story/the-pernicious-science-of-james-damores-google-memo/ I still don't think the firing or the over-the-top misrepresentations of his arguments in the aftermath of it going viral were right -- in fact, I'd say it was counter-productive -- but the above article offers a convincing rebuttal of his core arguments regarding the science.
People like to pretend there are only physical differences that are observable and measurable differentiating groups. No one pretends that there is no difference in the height of men and women, for example, or that the difference in height is entirely cultural or due to the oppression of women. No one pretends that hair or skin or eye color is equally distributed despite ancestry. No one pretends that certain genetic disorders are more common in some racial groups than others. What people do like to pretend is that the brain is somehow immune to these differences in population genetics. I think the article is saying his conclusions are premature, though not necessarily wrong. Above all, they are saying that the observed differences are not necessarily biological in origin. I don't know why that would matter though, as Google isn't raising their employees from birth. If biological and cultural factors determine that people suited to programming are 70/30 Male/Female, doesn't his point remain the same (that it is the proclivity of the population, and not discrimination, that is producing the observed imbalanced outcome and thus it is wrong for Google to try to correct for this discrepancy by creating programs available only to women). I think the outrage from without, but especially from within Google is fundamentally misunderstanding his points. For example, the women working at Google that say he is claiming they are biologically unsuited for their jobs; they clearly don't understand that he is claiming they are among the minority of women who are suited to work in tech, and it is because more men than women are so suited that there is a gender imbalance at Google. He explicitly points out in his paper that there are greater differences within populations than the difference in averages, and yet I have seen this used as an argument to attack him.
Google's firing of James Damore was legal, labor board says Google didn't break the law when it fired James Damore over a memo that criticized the company's diversity policies and claimed tech's gender gap may be due to biological differences between men and women. That's the word this week from a lawyer with the US National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that oversees employment practices. Before his firing, Damore had filed a complaint with the NLRB that charged Google with "misrepresenting and shaming me in order to silence my complaints." But in an agency memorandum made public Thursday, an NLRB lawyer said Google fired the computer engineer not for expressing dissenting views or criticism, but over "unprotected discriminatory statements" in his memo, which he'd posted to internal discussion forums at the tech giant. "Employers have a strong interest in promoting diversity and encouraging employees across diverse demographic groups to thrive in their workplaces," attorney Jayme Sophir wrote in the memorandum (PDF), originally penned in January. "Employers must be permitted to 'nip in the bud' the kinds of employee conduct that could lead to a 'hostile workplace.'" Damore withdrew the NLRB complaint last month to focus on a lawsuit against Google. The company fired Damore last August for a memo in which he criticized Google's inclusion and diversity policies and accused the tech giant of having a left-leaning "monoculture" that led to an "ideological echo chamber." Damore has since become a poster child for conservatives in the debate over identity politics. Damore's memo also said tech's male-skewed employment ranks may be due to biological differences between the sexes. Among other things, it said women can't handle stress as well, which may account for the lower number of them in high-pressure jobs. Critics have said Damore cherry-picked research to support his point of view and that there's no evidence women in tech are less capable than men. Damore's memo made headlines before his firing when it was obtained by the press after it had reportedly gone viral within Google and caused outrage there. The continuing debate over the memo and Damore's sacking exemplifies a larger argument in which some critics attack Silicon Valley for a sexist, "brogrammer" culture, while others accuse the Valley of being a "one-party state" that's intolerant of conservative viewpoints. The day Damore was dismissed, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in his own memo, to employees, that parts of Damore's missive "violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace. To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK."
I always thought it was funny that those who were "outraged" by the memo are almost always either people who didn't read it or people who aren't smart enough to understand it.
From the NLRB memo: Additionally, employers have a strong interest in promoting diversity and encouraging employees across diverse demographic groups to thrive in their workplaces. In furtherance of these legitimate interests, employers must be permitted to “nip in the bud” the kinds of employee conduct that could lead to a “hostile workplace,” rather than waiting until an actionable hostile workplace has been created before taking action. Apparently, the author of these words feels “promoting diversity” should not apply to diversity in political beliefs — or any expression of such diversity —when it could lead to a “hostile workplace”. The Charging Party’s use of stereotypes based on purported biological differences between women and men should not be treated differently than the types of conduct the Board found unprotected in these cases. statements about immutable traits linked to sex—such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution—were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding effort to cloak comments with “scientific” references and analysis, and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. Moreover, those statements were likely to cause serious dissension and disruption in the workplace. Indeed, the memorandum did cause extreme discord, which the Charging Party exacerbated by deliberately expanding its audience. Numerous employees complained to the Employer that the memorandum was discriminatory against women, deeply offensive, and made them feel unsafe at work. Moreover, the Charging Party reasonably should have known that the memorandum would likely be disseminated further, even beyond the workplace. Once the memorandum was shared publicly, at least two female engineering candidates withdrew from consideration and explicitly named the memo as their reason for doing so. Thus, while much of the Charging Party’s memorandum was likely protected, the statements regarding biological differences between the sexes were so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected. I find this rationale highly questionable. Given the noted disclaimer that his statements do not apply to individuals and the fact that the memo based its arguments regarding biological differences on references/analysis taken from mainstream psychology literature, how can it be considered “discriminatory” in any legal sense? And the reason behind why his memo would cause serious dissension and discord within Google was exactly the point he was making — there was a culture of intolerance to views not considered politically correct. It really didn’t matter in the end how much his opinions were supported by behaviorial science literature or how logical were his arguments. And blaming him for the memo leak (which, at least early on, was in a redacted form with all the references missing) and the ensuing politically motivated outrage — largely driven by blatant mischaracterization of his memo — is just dumb. So really what this amounts to is that given the truth behind his central thesis that Google shuns diversity in opinion about diversity itself, his decision to circulate a contrarian opinion on that topic was met with hostility and “justified” his firing.
Uh oh. Looks like Google has affirmative action. https://www.cnet.com/news/google-accused-of-excluding-asians-whites-for-some-positions/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtub...ales-lawsuit-says-1519948013?tesla=y&mod=e2fb At first, I thought it was just a disgruntled employee. But the WSJ article says others involved in hiring can corroborate the quotas.
Google's current hiring numbers are still pathetically low. Their problem is that they can't say that they're for diversity when their actual numbers makes them liars. edit: and maybe pissing off "that kind" of recruiter is a step towards developing a better "cultural fit"? Nice conflation of a gov mandate to receive gov funding with a privately owned corporation, btw.
The "problem" is not Google or any other company. The result is due to who Google and other companies can recruit. As we saw with the Stackoverflow survey data: 90% of respondents are male. And the vast majority of those respondents are White and Asian. It stands to reason therefore that these companies' demographics closer mirror the demographics of the available pool of potential employees.
