| > Not all the children are above average. They don't have to be. Only the majority, and I have a hard time believing that the majority of software engineers and leaders are of average capability or worse. I'm open to data to the contrary, however. > You can cut this cake a different way, too... race. White people are overrepresented (or non-whites are underrepresented) in IT, and in high-status jobs. Not sure what your point is here. Are you implying that because there are racial disparities as well, then both gender and racial disparities must have a common cause? That's obviously fallacious, but I don't know what else to make of this. > Right now, women are significantly underrepresented as CEOs and senators. But a century ago, there were no women CEOs or senators. Are women less genetically inclined to their "proper" path as homemakers now than they were a century ago? No. I made no claims about the cause of disparities a century ago. > At a certain point, I start cutting the cake with Occam's Razor. Good. Then let's hold off on the elaborate conspiracy theories until we can invalidate the simpler explanations, eh? |
As for my point, it's that systematic bias against people by race looks remarkably similar to systematic bias against people by gender. That suggests a common cause, especially when one group (white men) is the beneficiary of both. Hence Occam's Razor. A single dominant group shutting out everyone who doesn't match the dominant traits is a simpler explanation than coming up with two entirely separate causes for the same observation.
As for historical disparaties... I know you didn't make claims about disparities a century ago. The historic example was an argument against the case you made that somehow, women are genetically predisposed to avoid certain career paths.