[mpweiher]

>> Is there any evidence that this is biological, as opposed to cultural?

> [Plenty]

> It looks like there is only indirect evidence,

And there go the goalposts, red-shifting into the sunset.

> "correlation means causation" / "there is good evidence ... play a role ..."

Well, remember that Damore's claim was that there is evidence that we cannot categorically rule out biological causes for the skewed representation, in addition to discrimination.

For that claim, even much weaker evidence than what exists would have been sufficient.

[dragonwriter]

Damore’s claim was that the evidence justified specific corporate policy responses, including rejecting several of Google’s public core values.

[mpweiher]

Nah. His claim was that there was enough evidence to question policies (secret policies that were in violation of those public core values and probably also the law) that are based on the completely unfounded assumption that discrimination/bias/oppression is the only possible cause for unequal representation.

[stcredzero]

It's more like Damore's claim was that specific corporate policy were based on the assumption of the opposite. Also, he did not reject Google's core values, unless you take a biased and imputational reading.

[dragonwriter]

> It's more like Damore's claim was that specific corporate policy were based on the assumption of the opposite

No, while that was a supporting claim, the conclusory claims everything in the manifesto are offered to support are that specific policy changes are justified.

> Also, he did not reject Google's core values, unless you take a biased and imputational reading.

As an example, empathy is a core publicly-stated internal value of Google which Damore explicitly called for de-emphasizing. There's nothing “biased and imputational” about reading Damore’s words to mean what they explicitly say.

[mpweiher]

> everything in the manifesto are offered to support are that specific policy changes are justified.

No. The main reason he gives for policy changes is that the policy isn't working. Numbers haven't budged, despite measures getting ever more extreme and likely illegal. He then suggests that maybe, just maybe, the policy is based on a false assumption. And then delivers some evidence that this could be true. And then presents some ideas of what policies might have a better chance of working.

> empathy is a core publicly-stated internal value of Google which Damore explicitly called for de-emphasizing

Where? I've searched a bunch of places and can't find this, for example:

https://www.google.com/about/philosophy.html

I also googled "google values" and none of the posts so far have had "empathy" in them, though it could be that I haven't searched enough. Anyway, empathy is not a value. Empathy is an emotional capacity. His criticism of empathy is, as far as I can tell, based on the thesis of Paul Bloom's recent book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. [1][2][3].

"Brilliantly argued, urgent and humane, AGAINST EMPATHY shows us that, when it comes to both major policy decisions and the choices we make in our everyday lives, limiting our impulse toward empathy is often the most compassionate choice we can make."

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-Compass...

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29100194-against-empathy

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/books/review-against-empa...

[andrewprock]

There is quite a distance between:

"We cannot rule out biological causes" and "We should base our HR policy on this speculative research".

[mpweiher]

"We should not base our corporate policy on the completely unproven and highly unlikely assumption that oppression is the only possible cause of unequal representation"

There, fixed that for you.

Also, the research is not at all speculative, quite the opposite. It is immeasurably more solid than the blind assertion that unequal representation is caused entirely/solely by oppression/discrimination etc., for which there is very little evidence overall, and virtually none that holds up to any sort of scrutiny.

[andrewprock]

Given that there is no known mechanism, characterizing it as "the opposite of speculative" seems rather naive.

[mpweiher]

Sorry, I can't parse this. Are you saying that until we have a complete understanding of how the brain and mind work, all psychological research is essentially worthless?

[andrewprock]

On the contrary, I'm saying that speculative research probably isn't suitable for crafting HR policies.

[mpweiher]

So you agree with James. Glad we could clear that up.

Background: there is little to no evidence for the assertion that discrimination/oppression is the sole cause of the under-representation of women in tech, but that assertion is the basis of the HR policies that Damore criticized. In fact, the evidence that it is even a contributing factor is at best scant/anecdotal.

The evidence that Damore cited is incomparably more solid.