[FabHK]

+1.

Most of the pieces about the memo didn't take time to highlight that "neuroticism" and "agreeableness" refer to Big-5 personality traits, not the everyday understanding of the words.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

Most of the pieces didn't distinguish between descriptive and normative statements.

Most of the pieces didn't distinguish between statements about distribution of something within a population, and statements about all members of that population.

[bduerst]

Except the Big Five has been debunked as being too lexical for biological differentiation.

Basically its lexical nature introduces perceptual bias that skews any factor analysis for biological structures - i.e. behavior between genders, for example. The way Damore uses it to support his hypothesis wasn't correct.

>And that is what the Big Five represents: a consistent model of how humans reflect individuality using language, no more. There were no considerations of findings in neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, experimental psychology, observations of behavior of people or animals in real situations – none of this was used at the research stage leading to the development of the Big Five. In this sense we can say that the Big Five does not represent the structure of temperament or the structure of biologically based traits, even though lexical perception reflects some elements of it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/

[stcredzero]

Except the Big Five has been debunked as being too lexical for biological differentiation.

Thanks for that. I find that reaction much more informative than the name-calling sent at James Damore.

In this sense we can say that the Big Five does not represent the structure of temperament or the structure of biologically based traits, even though lexical perception reflects some elements of it.

Well, one should expect that something based on self-report surveys to be about that disconnected from underlying biology. "...lexical perception reflects some elements of it" -- where {it} == {underlying biology}

As per usual, the reality of what goes on inside us is probably more complicated than our mental model of it.

[bduerst]

Sure, which may be fine for the burden of proof for a personal opinion.

Incorrectly using evidence to support your opinion as you broadcast it at work, and not listening, discussing, or considering critical feedback (like this) is a different matter. Especially when it means incorrectly classifying your co-workers and trying to change how your work fights social biases.

[stcredzero]

Incorrectly using evidence to support your opinion as you broadcast it at work

Sorry, but while your observation is interesting, there is nothing incorrect about citing such evidence.

Especially when it means incorrectly classifying your co-workers and trying to change how your work fights social biases.

Exactly how did James Damore go about classifying specific co-workers? [Citation Needed] Seriously, cite James Damore and show how he "classified" anyone in particular.

[bduerst]

Sure - The example in context to this thread is right here in Damore's memo:

> Women, on average, have more:

> - Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas...

> - Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness...

> - Neuroticism...

Damore supports this with a link [1] to a Wikipedia article, which immediately says:

> On the scales measured by the Big Five personality traits women consistently report higher Neuroticism, agreeableness, warmth (an extraversion facet)...

Damore incorrectly uses this information to make the broad statement that "Women have..." instead of "Women self-report...". This is incorrectly classifying your women coworkers as being, among other things, more neurotic than their male counterparts.

You may think, "So what?", but this is being used in an argument about how a company fights social biases, and this is incredibly relevant because lexical self-reporting is open to the same biases that are being fought. Damore, intentionally or not, glosses over this, but more importantly was not receptive to this type of feedback, hence the broadcasting.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#...

[stcredzero]

This is incorrectly classifying your women coworkers as being, among other things, more neurotic than their male counterparts.

Just because there is correlational evidence for the general population, it doesn't automatically follow that any given explictly selected population (such as Google's employee population) follows the stated correlation. Does he say so explicitly, and can you honestly rule out a speculative reading of his memo? I asked you for James Damore citing any particular coworker as having any particular quality. Still, the best you can do is to nitpick words and impute motives.

Also, what's particularly wrong with sensitive, agreeable, and warm people? I'm quite sensitive, though I'm only agreeable and warm in certain contexts. I could see how all of those traits could be of great benefit to developing many of Google's apps. Your implication that those traits are somehow bad also smacks of bias.

Given all the above, it sure seems like I could purport to read between the lines and say that you have some kind of vested interest in a particular reading of his memo, but my doing so would be falling into the very kind of irrational projection I'm self-referentially citing. So am I wrong in making this kind of projection? If I'm wrong for doing that, then it would seem you're wrong for your projections as well. If you say I'm correct about the projection, well, I'll take that just as well.

[lawnchair_larry]

I think you may have it backwards. I'm not sure if you read his memo, but it was actually Damore who was inviting discussion and listening to feedback. He was not met with anything resembling constructive discussion, but instead was fired and publicly shamed, in most cases based on fabrications of statements that he did not make, and that did not reflect his intent. Even this techcrunch article is full of them unfortunately.

Until the people who dislike what he had to say are willing to have an honest conversation about things he actually did say, progress here is impossible, and further backlash and resentment against minorities is inevitable.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

As someone on HN once said, we won't discuss the core of the problem not because what he said is untrue, but because the outcome of discussion may hurt peoples' feelings, and this is not the right thing to do...

I see their point, but there is a way of discussing it in a way that would minimize this risk. On the other hand, if you have some assumptions and consider their negation offensive, it's very difficult to have any form of conversation.

[SmirkingRevenge]

Google's primary business model, is literally to build the worlds best, most gigantic person-classification engine, and classify people with it. To sell shit.

[rendall]

> Except the Big Five has been debunked as being too lexical for biological differentiation.

Has the Big Five model been actually debunked? Or, rather, has it received criticism.

But, yes, your focus on the content of the memo itself is a breath of fresh air in this overall debacle of a discourse.

[FabHK]

1. Whether or not the Big Five are appropriate for the analysis or not, or whether they're ultimate truth or not, doesn't really matter for the point I and GP were making: Damon's terminology is jargon from differential psychology and easily misunderstood. ("Women score higher on neuroticism on average" does not mean "Women are too neurotic to work as engineers in big companies", or whatever.)

2. I think it takes more than one article (which has been cited once, by the author themselves) to unseat the Big Five.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/citedby...

3. As an aside, note that the article finds significant sex differences (p=0.00) in 10 out of 12 items on its proposed scale, STQ-150, if I'm understanding it correctly.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/table/p...

[bduerst]

1. And my point is that even with it's correctly understood, it is still incorrect. I agree that the entire document was overly vague and open to interpreters inserting their own ideas, usually tied to their own political identity.

2. Appealing to number of citations is an appeal to popularity (fallacy) because it avoids criticizing the content. It's also not "unseating" the big five, just demonstrating how the big five is incorrectly used as biological factor analysis. There are other applications is psychoanalysis the big five can be use for.

3. If you read the paper, you'd see that Table 3 is used in conjunction with other data to prove their hypothesis on projection-through-capacity bias.

[akvadrako]

So your point is that, even though the reporters neglected to explain (or understand) the term neurotic, they were justified because the ultimately correct explanation is that it's meaningless in context?

In that case, the only proper response is to report that the word neurotic is not scientific.

[stcredzero]

In that case, the only proper response is to report that the word neurotic is not scientific.

I think that's a discussion worth having. That would've been a lot better than just firing the guy!

[bduerst]

No, my point is that worrying about the semantics of the word neurotic is a pointless exercise because even when correctly understood in the case of the big five, it's still incorrectly used scientifically by Damore.

[scruple]

But it's disingenuous to the point of the memo, to the point that it's _deliberately_ misleading to the general public... Leading to the moral outrage.