[dahart]

Then I think you misunderstood the memo. The memo is making a biological correlation. It suggests that the current distributions might accurately reflect differences in biology.

Nature vs nurture is completely the point here, Damore argued that nature is the primary force, not nurture, and therefore we should stop nurturing women in tech.

[dropstickle]

Maybe I should have been clearer, you stated to the parent reply that:

>> I don't understand what you said there, can you elaborate? What is the difference between males being more biologically suitable and females being at a disadvantage? From my perspective, you just contradicted yourself, can you help me understand why it's not a contradiction?

This was in response to the parent that said Damore had not singled out any female google employes. The overweight example was an attempt to clarify that even though statistical averages say something about a group, it does not say something about the individual, i.e the google females should not feel singled out by statistical averages.

As for the nature/nuture point in the memo: yes the memo is making a biological claim backed by sources. It does not suggest that current distributions are correct. No, the memo is not saying that nature is the primary force, only that it might play a part [1]:

"Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership."

[1] https://diversitymemo.com/

[dahart]

> The overweight example was an attempt to clarify that even though statistical averages say something about a group, it does not say something about the individual, i.e the google females should not feel singled out by statistical averages.

Right. And what I've been trying to say is that the statistical averages aren't the offensive part. That's a straw man.

Google women don't feel offended when they're told they're a minority, they already know that; but they sure might reasonably be concerned when someone suggests they're a minority "in part" "possibly" because women aren't biologically as able to engineer as men.

> No, the memo is not saying that nature is the primary force, only that it might play a part [1]:

Sure, the memo didn't say it explicitly, but it did imply that. Everyone keeps defending the exact wording as if implication and misleading statements don't exist. Suggesting it's a "part" suggests it's a measurable and large part, comparable to social causes. Pointing out that women are more neurotic (which is a clinical term with very negative popular connotation, so extremely easily misunderstood) might be a part of why Google has so few women is leading the reader to conclude it's a major factor.

This argument is cherry-picking the science in favor, and completely ignoring the contrary evidence that suggests that social issues are much larger than anything we could possibly measure about innate biological ability. For example, that different countries have very different distributions of women in engineering, or that the distributions have changed wildly in the last 50 years.

[endorphone]

You intentional misinterpret the discussion. Well hopefully intentional, because otherwise it would reflect very poorly on you.

Let me use another example: The NFL has no rules against women playing. None. Yet 100% of players are male, because biologically the exceptionally large and athletic tend to be male. I'm male, so does that mean that I could be an NFL player? Of course not, and I in no universe am in that realm.

That is a more extreme example, but patronizingly suggesting that it's all just social is utterly laughable and just outright ignorant.

"This argument is cherry-picking the science in favor, and completely ignoring the contrary evidence that suggests that social issues are much larger"

At this point you've reached utter lol territory. You are outright being dense about actual science, and then casually waving your hands and claiming that is more authoritative.

[ltrcola]

Where is the evidence that any of these biological differences actually do cause women to choose tech careers less? Sure there are links to studies about the differences themselves, but that's it. And in fact, if you look at the changing makeup of Com Sci majors and programmers over the last 60 years, it seems to be a slight possibility at best and disingenuous at the worst.

[dropstickle]

> Right. And what I've been trying to say is that the statistical averages aren't the offensive part. That's a straw man.

Well you did pose the question, I just answered it, so it was not to erect a straw man, and I was not really trying to contradict the rest of your claim by that example, maybe I should have been clearer on that.

> Sure, the memo didn't say it explicitly, but it did imply that. Everyone keeps defending the exact wording as if implication and misleading statements don't exist. Suggesting it's a "part" suggests it's a measurable and large part, comparable to social causes.

Yes, he certainly does imply that biological causes has a measurable effect, and a large enough effect that it should be taken into consideration for measures (that he also suggests) in order to change work practices so as they might better fit females and thus increase diversity.

> Pointing out that women are more neurotic (which is a clinical term with very negative popular connotation, so extremely easily misunderstood) might be a part of why Google has so few women is leading the reader to conclude it's a major factor.

I agree that it is unfortunate that neurotic is easily misunderstood, but if he didn't use the correct clinical term he would be critized for not being scientific enough, which you are already critizing him for.

> This argument is cherry-picking the science in favor, and completely ignoring the contrary evidence that suggests that social issues are much larger than anything we could possibly measure about innate biological ability. For example, that different countries have very different distributions of women in engineering, or that the distributions have changed wildly in the last 50 years.

I don't agree with you that science has concluded that biological factors don't play a role in what professions people go into. I saw an interesting Harvard debate between Steven Pinker and Elisabeth Spelke on this [1]. The two examples you present does not explicitly contradict that it might be part biological reasons [2], the provided link has a fascinating discussion in the comment section that gives you both sides of the discussion.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hb3oe7-PJ8 [2] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

[dahart]

I quite appreciate your measured response, thank you for that.

> I don't agree with you that science has concluded that biological factors don't play a role in what professions people go into.

I don't recall saying nature isn't a factor at all, and if I did I take it back. But I do personally believe that right now nurture, which includes social and historical gender issues plus all forms of implicit and explicit social biases and discrimination, is the biggest factor. And enough bigger that it doesn't make any sense to talk about nature yet.

I didn't really intend to contradict the possibility of any biological factor, what I'm saying is that social issues appear to me to be a far larger influence than, say, any discernible difference in IQ. The memo either disagrees or ignores that.

Given that social factors were >99% of the distribution discrepancy less than a century ago, and that we're still working through huge social issues, and that workforce distributions of women both locally and globally are far from settled, I find it pretty hard to accept the idea that we should look at anything other than social factors.

It is possible that biological differences explain some of the workforce distributions. It's also possible that nature's effect on the current sex distribution of women in US tech is not even large enough to be measurable. It's possible that should we eradicate social gender inequality globally, biology's role will even out to a 0.0001% distribution discrepancy. It's also possible that Sabine Hossenfelder is right, and that once we have equal opportunity, "the higher ranks in science and politics would be dominated by women". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14976028

I will check out the videos, thank you for the links.

[dropstickle]

Social issues is quite a clearly a problem, I just guess we disagree on the degree of biological influence, although there are some interesting points you bring up.

This whole memo thing has certainly led me down the rabbit hole. Not being an actual scientist with insight into both biological and social factors, I find it hard to be to sure of where I stand on the issue, and the current political climate is certainly helping to muddy the waters.

[dennisgorelik]

This is a better sound quality video of Steven Pinker arguments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw

[manigandham]

As long as an individual person is the sum of both nature and nurture, then regardless of the exact ratio of influence, nature will continue to make a difference.

> Damore argued that nature is the primary force, not nurture, and therefore we should stop nurturing women in tech.

No, he argued that nature in part, may explain the gender mismatch. That really cant be denied. It was also specifically talking about interests rather than capabilities of working in tech. Saying you might not be interested in programming software does not mean you're not able to.

The memo also never said we should stop nurturing women but that we should use different tactics that are more of match to their common on average biological traits and avoid any other discrimination based on race/gender, instead treating everyone as individuals.

[ltrcola]

Actually, if you read it closely, this is not true. True, he does suggest a lot of potential actions that could create a more beneficial tech culture for women, but then he goes on to suggest that Google needs to determine if these types of changes would impact Google's productivity in a negative way.

This is a pretty heavy implication that these programs do not in fact have any value and that diversity is not valuable. I can agree that a perfect 50/50 split is unattainable and the wrong goal, but there are studies that show diversity confers an advantage. And as Yonatan points out, I think the author has a misunderstanding of what is valuable from an engineering culture perspective.

[manigandham]

I didn't see that clause about productivity, can you quote that piece of the memo? https://diversitymemo.com/

Yonatan's response was an emotional tirade, refusing to debate any of the cited research and using a different context of empathy. Nobody is debating the value of empathy in engineering (and it's good to have for any job and life in general, nothing specific to tech), but empathy in setting policy is completely different.

Rules should be set based on rational analysis instead of feelings. We argue for science/math-based policies in government so asking for the same in such a large corporation with regards to such a sensitive subject seems perfectly logical.

[ltrcola]

Here is the section from the memo that I'm referencing:

> Philosophically, I don’t think we should do arbitrary social engineering of tech just to make it appealing to equal portions of both men and women. For each of these changes, we need principled reasons for why it helps Google; that is, we should be optimizing for Google—with Google’s diversity being a component of that. For example currently those trying to work extra hours or take extra stress will inevitably get ahead and if we try to change that too much, it may have disastrous consequences. Also, when considering the costs and benefits, we should keep in mind that Google’s funding is finite so its allocation is more zero-sum than is generally acknowledged.

In general I agree that a rational analysis and science based approach is valuable. In fact, I think research into diversity actually does support the idea that it provides benefits. But it's not simply as black and white as science good, empathy/moralizing bad.

For instance, it may be objectively better for a company to do a lot of things that we consider immoral or harmful to society. For instance, how much does maternity and paternity leave cost a company in productivity, time, and the expense of providing a replacement worker? In fact, it might just be more profitable not to hire women of childbearing age at all, which actually was socially accepted for a long time. But these days our society has come to the general conclusion that this is actually morally unacceptable, and the benefits to parents and society outweigh the costs to the company. A very similar argument could be employed regarding the hiring of employees in the reserves or national guard.

I think you have to look at things holistically, as an entire system, and yes, morally.