[chongli]

"While there may be scientific evidence of differences between men and women, using these differences to conclude that women are biologically less inclined to engineering is a gross leap in reasoning that is not at all supported by the facts."

That is not true. The facts support the exact opposite conclusion: that prenatal exposure to androgens orients a person toward things/systems rather than people. [0]

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

[mwytock]

I'm not sure what you are arguing, can you be more explicit? You're saying that you agree with the fundamental point of the memo?

[chongli]

I'm saying that the scientific research agrees with the point of the memo. Whether or not I agree is irrelevant to the facts.

[mwytock]

I see. Well I'm saying it does not. Obviously we disagree about what the scientific research says.

[LunaSea]

Could you link to these research papers you are mentioning?

[mwytock]

See citation above. I'm saying its much too strong a claim to go from this paper to the conclusion that women are biologically less inclined to engineering.

EDIT: To be consistent with my original statement (see child)

[peoplewindow]

You are losing this argument because you aren't being consistent with yourself.

Originally you said, "using these differences to conclude that women are biologically less inclined to engineering is a gross leap in reasoning"

So you were talking about inclination and interest. You then claimed the facts were on your side, that it was offensive to claim otherwise, and the existence of anyone who doesn't already agree is "unfortunate".

After chongli pointed out that you're wrong about the facts, you have moved the goalposts. Now you're pretending you said "biologically ill-suited". This is not true. You said "less inclined".

As the memo in question didn't claim women are biologically ill-suited to be software engineers, only less inclined, your original statement was contradicted by science and your second try is not what anyone tried to argue.

[stagbeetle]

To summarize the reasoning path:

1). "Results provide strong support for hormonal influences on interest in occupations characterized by working with Things versus People"[0]

2). "Boys and men prefer occupations related to objects (e.g., auto mechanic, chemist), whereas girls and women prefer occupations involving work with people (e.g., day care worker, art teacher).[0]"

3). "Our results suggest that typical women, who are exposed to low levels of prenatal androgen, participate less than do men in STEM careers partly because they are interested in working with people. This is consistent with evidence that women value communal goals, which are perceived to be at odds with STEM careers (Diekman et al., 2010) and that women who enter STEM careers often do so in people-oriented professions, such as medicine (Benbow et al., 2000)."[0]

It's the paper that is concluding women are biologically less inclined to engineering.

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