Given that 'The alt-right, or alternative right, is a loosely defined group of people' it's great for suggestive hinting while not having to bother to define terms.
Thank you for this submission. This is basically the first scientist disagreeing with Demore. The previous ones (five of them I think, submitted to HN and quickly flagged) basically agreed with what he said.
I think we can now start to have a normal discussion with arguments, based on studies and evidence, rather that name calling (although Suzanne's answer is not entirely unemotional, but that's her right).
The guy is absolutely pushing an alt-right agenda, it's plain to see in the manifesto, and that's before we get to his guest appearance on a prominent alt-right YouTube show.
Even so you are aware the Quora question is "What do scientists think about the biological claims?", so the ad hominem is not only a distracting annoyance but is also undermining of one's claim to objective impartiality.
I doubt the respondant would claim objective impartiality, and if they did, their article would quickly make clear that they have a background and situation that colours their view of the issue and that they feel very strongly about it and are emotionally engaged with it.
None of this means that they are wrong on the substantive points they make though, even though you're right that the alt-right claim isn't helpful. In fact I got the impression of someone who feels very strongly about the issues, but who is still trying to engage logically and reasonably and in good faith, even if they slip occasionally. Much the same can probably be said for the original memo author.
It would be far more interesting to see him on a Progressive YouTube show, however, as he says, few people who criticized him contacted him personally. I don't think he'd avoid such a confrontation if he was given a chance, but my feeling is that in current PC climate some people would be offended just by hearing what he says, so it's unlikely he'd even get invited.
> however, as he says, few people who criticized him contacted him personally
According to the Guardian[1], "Damore initially told the Guardian he would answer questions by email on Monday, but then stopped responding to inquiries. He had a few brief email exchanges with reporters, including at the New York Times, Bloomberg and the rightwing site website Breitbart."
Giving an extended interview with Molyneux instead of the NYT or even Breitbart is not recommended if you want to avoid being seen as anti-feminist or "alt-right".
It's interesting to see that he apparently prefers video interviews than written statements. Maybe he feels if he says something in writing, his words can be twisted by being used out of context? Whereas if he appears live, it will be more difficult to manipulate.
I notice he basically appears almost exclusively on video now.
Yes, but she uses counterarguments based on relevant past studies rather than empty "everyone knows it's just sexism" style of arguing that we've seen so far in the media.
That's a good start nevertheless, a level above the usual "what a sexist pig" pseudo-arguments.
Reading each of these articles I learn something more, I expand my knowledge of things that weren't even in my area of interest, I get more understanding as to what is offending other people these days... I think a discussion based on merits is extremely useful, and I'm sad seeing all these articles quickly flagged.
We don't live in an ideal world. People have their own agendas, obsessions, feelings etc. that obscure their judgement. It will definitely take a long while.
> We don't live in an ideal world. People have their own agendas, obsessions, feelings etc. that obscure their judgement. It will definitely take a long while.
Well, when you put it like that, firing the guy was clearly the best decision.....
I'm not sure if it's the best for the guy, but definitely for the advancement of the general discussion about the limits of political correctness and freedom to express one's opinions, or even scientific research not in line with mainline views.
It's inevitable that even good faith counterarguments will occasionally mistake exactly what the original argument was. Especially when the participants start with such different viewpoints and on topics that they obviously feel strongly about. The way to continue the argument (if that's what you want to do) is to point out what the stronger (and perhaps more correct/original) version of the point being countered is and how it differs from the version that was countered.
Simply dismissing counterpoints without engaging to make sure you understand them runs the risk of falling for the exact thing you're criticising.
> argues that cognitive sex differences influence performance in software engineering.
Damore never argued for this, he argued that cognitive sex differences could possibly influence interest in software engineering work as it done today and that difference in interest could partially explain the gender gap in tech. He then suggest that we try alternate approaches when we try to increase women's representation since they might work better, which hints at him thinking that women would be valuable as engineers at Google, just that the current arguably misplaced diversity efforts might not achieve that goal.
Is the articles quote unfair then? It explicitly calls out an apparent jump from preferences to abilities in the original. (My emphasis)
>>I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.
>
> At what point did we jump from talking about personalities to abilities?
Difference in preferences usually results in difference in abilities due to a difference in life choices, that is how I interpreted it. So if biology has any effect on preferences then biology indirectly influences ability but it is still nothing that can't be overcome by someone who likes the subject.
Yeah this must be how climate change deniers feel about the scientific view of climate change. It really feels like it's just one scientist's work against another. I don't have time to actually read their studies so how should I know who to believe?
Of course this is much worse than climate change because that's 'hard science' where it's relatively easy to get good evidence. Psychology seems to be barely better than guesswork.
> Psychology seems to be barely better than guesswork.
It depends on the school of thought and experimentation methods.
Some, for example, will focus almost exclusively in easily measurable physiological responses to stimuli and draw very restricted conclusions on their experimental results.
Others will sit on a desk, reflect on their past and speculate extensively about human nature based on that.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with the original manifesto, why couldn't Googlers have a civil discussion like that Quora thread instead of firing him?
Amongst many other reasons, because stuff like that 'manifesto' actively harms Google by harming a significant minority of their employees who might, if nothing was done about it, leave the industry because it was the last straw after a lifetime of harassment and devaluation.
> Our co-workers shouldn’t have to worry that each time they open their mouths to speak in a meeting, they have to prove that they are not like the memo states, being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.”
> It’s true that women and men, on average, have been found in some studies to differ in empathizing/agreeableness, systematizing, gregariousness versus assertiveness; and neuroticism.
> The passing mention of IQ is interesting, since it has nothing to do with gender, which is the focus everywhere else. He’s presumably talking about race, but he doesn’t want to be branded a racist, so he keeps the reference subtle. So why risk doing it at all? It’s a dog-whistle to the alt-right.
He could be talking about a difference in variance of IQ between genders, which has been observed in some studies.
Am I the only one that sees an inconsistency between the touchy feely world of inclusiveness and diversity within these US tech companies, and the Darwinian harshness of life outside them in the US? I'm thinking of what seems to an outsider like a generally held callousness towards those that fall through the cracks, and a focus on individual agency as being the sole determinant of success, ignoring very real factors like background etc.
american civilization lacks the maturity of foresight. their <250 year history is greedy search.
this permeates all levels of their culture and cements company ethos as a race between employees rather than a collaborative endeavor in profit sharing, stable growth, harmonious balance. you should look at it as a sandbox environment to test out human ingenuity, everything else be damned. americans are ephemeral, they don't exist as a collective. despite the quasi-fascist 100 year long effort to build militaristic patriotism into the hearts and minds of the young.
how many american politicians have been educated in the far east? asia is the biggest threat to american dominance in the next century and americas role in world government is only nascent. they will have a clear road towards leadership and development of the human race going forward. yet their business, cultural and political thinkers have no experience with half of the worlds population.
everyone says one thing and does something else. it's more transparent and sleazy in america. give them another few hundred years to refine their technique.
It's great that someone took the time and had the peace of mind to write down this firm rebuttal.
Sexist or not, the original manifesto was anti science. How so many whose paycheck depends on the implementation of logic got hoodwinked into defending what basically amounts to an political pamphlet by a couple of references baffles me.
> More scientists have written in defense than opposition
Yes, and all of them underlining the argument that women are indeed different from men, which isn't contested in the slightest.
What remained uncontested is the sloppy science. In science you present a claim, construct an argument, and reach a conclusion.
You can't construct an argument that doesn't support your conclusion and then proclaim it must be valid because it has something to do with the initial claim.
What happened here was:
-Fact: Women are different than men.
-Observation: There is a difference between men and woman in IT.
-Conclusion: this difference in IT must be based on the primary difference between men and women.
or
-Fact: all goats breathe
-Observation: Plato breathes
-Conclusion: Plato is a goat.
I hope everyone recognises this fallacy.
It's pointless to keep presenting evidence for the initial fact. What you need to do is introduce new facts that construct a solid argument that includes your observation and logically binds it into the conclusion.
As the quora article points out, that's not what happened.
On top of that (or underneath) there's also some political la-ti-da going on, which is fine for a memo, and if it had been restricted to that, I doubt it would have caused this much commotion.
TL;DR (also, don't use that term in any sort of treatise that you want to sound scientific) if you want to use science to shield you from negative reactions to postulating an unpopular idea, make sure it's sound.
So you're saying that he stated some science, which you're not disputing, and then made an argument from those grounds that moved from science into politics, and you don't agree with the argument he made.
That's not anti-science, attempting to root your discourse in science is absolutely pro-science. At best you can say that the parts which led on from the science were "non=science" - well yeah, by definition.
Except that's exactly what he didn't make. It severely lacked implications that tied his facts and arguments to his conclusion(s).
> you don't agree with the argument
"Since in the original memo a conservative argued towards a conservative point of view, and you oppose that, you must be a non-conservative arguing towards a non-conservative point of view."
That doesn't follow.
> attempting to root your discourse in science is absolutely pro-science.
New Earth creationism, anti-evolution, etc. Let's try and be realistic here. Interpreting conclusions of actual science to derive truths that were never implied by said conclusions to further base your own argument on is intellectually dishonest and not "pro-science".
Your Plato metaphor is unfair, because we already know Plato is a man, not a goat, from fairly conclusive evidence before you present your statements. However, Damore has put forth that the current societally accepted reason for the skewed IT gender distribution (prejudice against women) has less than conclusive evidence backing it up.
Your assertion of the memo's claim:
-Fact: Women are different than men.
-Observation: There is a difference between men and woman in IT.
-Conclusion: this difference in IT must be based on the primary difference between men and women.
This is close to what I believe Damore was saying, only replace 'must be' with 'may in part be and we shouldn't rule out the possibility just because it's politically incorrect to discuss.'
Here's what I claim the current politically correct claim is:
-Fact: There have been cases of sexism found in IT.
-Observation: IT as a whole is a sexist industry.
-Conclusion: this gender difference in IT must be based primarily on this sexism.
However, is this a foregone conclusion, given the current studies found on it? I know of several attempts which have been made but none are any more persuasive to me than Damore's theory, either being too small, flawed(often for the same reason Damore felt the need to write the memo and why he was fired), or just inconclusive. And it seems anecdotal evidence makes up a large part of our reason for believing it as a society.
It's quite possible the truth lies in a mixture of both, in fact I'd say I'm almost certain of it. However, for some reason everyone is outraged at the suggestion that there might be a drop of truth behind what Damore was saying even though he wasn't claiming gender inferiority, merely preference.
Additionally, I don't believe he was misusing the conclusions of the scientific studies he cited. The prime example is his claim of women being more 'neurotic,' and people immediately assume he's calling them inferior. Whereas there was no value judgment in the original scientific study (which was widely accepted prior to the memo) or his application of it and may very well indicate a preference not to work in IT.
> > On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed ...
> His implicit model is that cognitive traits must be either biological (i.e. innate, natural, and unchangeable) or non-biological (i.e., learned by a blank slate).
Within a few lines of each other. I think she is reading what she wants to read.
46 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 88.5 ms ] threadedit: I find it interesting that most comments criticizing the guy is heavily downvoted while his supporters claim they are being gagged
I don't think we can.
There is no consensus regarding what the "alt-right" is, even among those who self-identify as members.
You don't know that, and I get little impression of such from his Bloomberg appearance today: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-08-10/fired-engin...
Even so you are aware the Quora question is "What do scientists think about the biological claims?", so the ad hominem is not only a distracting annoyance but is also undermining of one's claim to objective impartiality.
None of this means that they are wrong on the substantive points they make though, even though you're right that the alt-right claim isn't helpful. In fact I got the impression of someone who feels very strongly about the issues, but who is still trying to engage logically and reasonably and in good faith, even if they slip occasionally. Much the same can probably be said for the original memo author.
According to the Guardian[1], "Damore initially told the Guardian he would answer questions by email on Monday, but then stopped responding to inquiries. He had a few brief email exchanges with reporters, including at the New York Times, Bloomberg and the rightwing site website Breitbart."
Giving an extended interview with Molyneux instead of the NYT or even Breitbart is not recommended if you want to avoid being seen as anti-feminist or "alt-right".
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/09/james-dam...
Well, when you put it like that, firing the guy was clearly the best decision.....
edit: formatting
Simply dismissing counterpoints without engaging to make sure you understand them runs the risk of falling for the exact thing you're criticising.
Damore never argued for this, he argued that cognitive sex differences could possibly influence interest in software engineering work as it done today and that difference in interest could partially explain the gender gap in tech. He then suggest that we try alternate approaches when we try to increase women's representation since they might work better, which hints at him thinking that women would be valuable as engineers at Google, just that the current arguably misplaced diversity efforts might not achieve that goal.
I have never wanted to use all caps so badly before in my life.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Is the articles quote unfair then? It explicitly calls out an apparent jump from preferences to abilities in the original. (My emphasis)
>>I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.
>
> At what point did we jump from talking about personalities to abilities?
Indeed, but the relationship is not necessarily simple and requires argumentation rather than handwave.
> one scientist's opinion
We're reaching "both sides of the climate change debate" levels of spinning here.
Of course this is much worse than climate change because that's 'hard science' where it's relatively easy to get good evidence. Psychology seems to be barely better than guesswork.
It depends on the school of thought and experimentation methods.
Some, for example, will focus almost exclusively in easily measurable physiological responses to stimuli and draw very restricted conclusions on their experimental results.
Others will sit on a desk, reflect on their past and speculate extensively about human nature based on that.
But yeah, it's a rather soft science.
> Our co-workers shouldn’t have to worry that each time they open their mouths to speak in a meeting, they have to prove that they are not like the memo states, being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.”
Evolutionary biologist Suzanne Sadedin (quora answer linked here):
> It’s true that women and men, on average, have been found in some studies to differ in empathizing/agreeableness, systematizing, gregariousness versus assertiveness; and neuroticism.
He could be talking about a difference in variance of IQ between genders, which has been observed in some studies.
This guy was naive enough to try and present a rational and measured suggestion for meaningful improvement.
this permeates all levels of their culture and cements company ethos as a race between employees rather than a collaborative endeavor in profit sharing, stable growth, harmonious balance. you should look at it as a sandbox environment to test out human ingenuity, everything else be damned. americans are ephemeral, they don't exist as a collective. despite the quasi-fascist 100 year long effort to build militaristic patriotism into the hearts and minds of the young.
how many american politicians have been educated in the far east? asia is the biggest threat to american dominance in the next century and americas role in world government is only nascent. they will have a clear road towards leadership and development of the human race going forward. yet their business, cultural and political thinkers have no experience with half of the worlds population.
everyone says one thing and does something else. it's more transparent and sleazy in america. give them another few hundred years to refine their technique.
Sexist or not, the original manifesto was anti science. How so many whose paycheck depends on the implementation of logic got hoodwinked into defending what basically amounts to an political pamphlet by a couple of references baffles me.
Yes, and all of them underlining the argument that women are indeed different from men, which isn't contested in the slightest.
What remained uncontested is the sloppy science. In science you present a claim, construct an argument, and reach a conclusion.
You can't construct an argument that doesn't support your conclusion and then proclaim it must be valid because it has something to do with the initial claim.
What happened here was:
-Fact: Women are different than men.
-Observation: There is a difference between men and woman in IT.
-Conclusion: this difference in IT must be based on the primary difference between men and women.
or
-Fact: all goats breathe
-Observation: Plato breathes
-Conclusion: Plato is a goat.
I hope everyone recognises this fallacy.
It's pointless to keep presenting evidence for the initial fact. What you need to do is introduce new facts that construct a solid argument that includes your observation and logically binds it into the conclusion.
As the quora article points out, that's not what happened.
On top of that (or underneath) there's also some political la-ti-da going on, which is fine for a memo, and if it had been restricted to that, I doubt it would have caused this much commotion.
TL;DR (also, don't use that term in any sort of treatise that you want to sound scientific) if you want to use science to shield you from negative reactions to postulating an unpopular idea, make sure it's sound.
That's not anti-science, attempting to root your discourse in science is absolutely pro-science. At best you can say that the parts which led on from the science were "non=science" - well yeah, by definition.
Except that's exactly what he didn't make. It severely lacked implications that tied his facts and arguments to his conclusion(s).
> you don't agree with the argument
"Since in the original memo a conservative argued towards a conservative point of view, and you oppose that, you must be a non-conservative arguing towards a non-conservative point of view."
That doesn't follow.
> attempting to root your discourse in science is absolutely pro-science.
New Earth creationism, anti-evolution, etc. Let's try and be realistic here. Interpreting conclusions of actual science to derive truths that were never implied by said conclusions to further base your own argument on is intellectually dishonest and not "pro-science".
Your assertion of the memo's claim:
-Fact: Women are different than men. -Observation: There is a difference between men and woman in IT. -Conclusion: this difference in IT must be based on the primary difference between men and women.
This is close to what I believe Damore was saying, only replace 'must be' with 'may in part be and we shouldn't rule out the possibility just because it's politically incorrect to discuss.'
Here's what I claim the current politically correct claim is:
-Fact: There have been cases of sexism found in IT. -Observation: IT as a whole is a sexist industry. -Conclusion: this gender difference in IT must be based primarily on this sexism.
However, is this a foregone conclusion, given the current studies found on it? I know of several attempts which have been made but none are any more persuasive to me than Damore's theory, either being too small, flawed(often for the same reason Damore felt the need to write the memo and why he was fired), or just inconclusive. And it seems anecdotal evidence makes up a large part of our reason for believing it as a society.
It's quite possible the truth lies in a mixture of both, in fact I'd say I'm almost certain of it. However, for some reason everyone is outraged at the suggestion that there might be a drop of truth behind what Damore was saying even though he wasn't claiming gender inferiority, merely preference.
Additionally, I don't believe he was misusing the conclusions of the scientific studies he cited. The prime example is his claim of women being more 'neurotic,' and people immediately assume he's calling them inferior. Whereas there was no value judgment in the original scientific study (which was widely accepted prior to the memo) or his application of it and may very well indicate a preference not to work in IT.
> > On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed ...
> His implicit model is that cognitive traits must be either biological (i.e. innate, natural, and unchangeable) or non-biological (i.e., learned by a blank slate).
Within a few lines of each other. I think she is reading what she wants to read.