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by bduerst 3083 days ago
Sadedin quotes Damore directly and addresses his argument directly.

I get that you support and want to make your own personal argument in for Damore's memo, but if you would read the Sadedin's criticism of Damore's memo, rather than dismissing it with an ad hom attack, you would see that the points you and Quillette are raising are addressed.

You can't ask me, "Did you actually read the memo?" and then make excuses to not read an expert's criticism. It smacks of confirmation bias.

1 comments

> Sadedin quotes Damore directly and addresses his argument, point by point.

No she does not. I read Sadedin's response when this Damore thing blew up. Sadedin's mistakes are so blindingly obvious that I can't even... Here's Sadedin quoting Damore and responding to it:

> Damore: 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.

> Sadedin: At what point did we jump from talking about personalities to abilities? It’s a massive leap to conclude that a slight difference in average personality must undermine women’s professional abilities in software engineering.

Except Damore didn't say anything of the sort. Damore literally said nothing about ability in his entire memo except this one off-hand remark that some differences in ability might exist due to biology, and Sadedin spends half her text attempting to debunk something Damore didn't even claim.

Sadedin clearly has an axe to grind, and Damore's memo was a convenient outlet. Sadedin's reply is riddled with exactly this sort of pattern, building up a nice Damore strawman and easily knocking it down.

And now I suggest you read the other expert's opinion that I linked in my previous comment, as he provides an overview of over 4 decades of cross-cultural research on gender differences which actually explains the data we have, rather than some bizarre conspiracy theory of nationwide sexism, oh but not everywhere, just in these specific fields for no reason whatsoever.

I'm not even going to bother responding to any more uninformed comments on this topic. You believe what you like, but if you're interested in evidence-based measures to improve gender disparity in STEM, then inform yourself. If you just want to wage some gender holy war, then I'm not interested in hearing about it.

>Except Damore didn't say anything of the sort.

Damore did right here: (emphasis added)

> 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.

This is a key misrepresentation of the evidence, as it is claimed, right here by Damore. Whether or not it's claimed multiple times in the memo, as you say, does not mean Damore does not make the claim. It is one point of many that is addressed directly by Sadedin.

Again, your attempt to minimize Damore's fallacious statement, as well as unwillingness to continue a discussion you started in lieu of new information you find disagreeable, is confirmation bias.

Except it's not a misrepresentation at all. It's well known that men and women have different abilities. And note how Damore said such differences may contribute, not do. So where's the misrepresentation exactly? Also, you're misusing "fallacious". Damore's argument wouldn't be fallacious if it were factually incorrect.

Furthermore, the straw man I referred to is that she took his brief mention of possible difference in abilities as an implication that Damore was saying they would adversely affect female success in engineering. He doesn't say that anywhere. She's putting words in his mouth instead of making a charitable reading like one should in any debate. Considering Damore's argument doesn't in any way depend on differences in ability, what do you think the charitable reading is?

You're arguing exactly the same straw man as Sadedin. Damore's whole argument does not depend on this one statement, even if it were untrue. Many more of Sadedin's rebuttals make exactly the same mistake and I'm not going to rehash this whole thing again.

I also notice that you've now repeatedly ignored the other experts I've cited in preference to one that agrees with your chosen narrative. I suggest exposing yourself to a wider variety of opinions and data.

If feels truly odd read you saying "he didn't say it!" and the saying "but it's true!"

It feels like you've gotten yourself a little lost. My guess is that you are indeed suffering from systemic confirmation bias.

Again, Sadedin covers this. Men and women differ in motor skills, not abilities that make them good executives, software engineers, upper level management, etc., which Damore isclaiming. You're ignoring the facts here (confirmation bias).

Also, a moment ago you were saying Damore doesn't make this claim, now you're defending it? Which is it?