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by YeGoblynQueenne
2671 days ago
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As a separate comment, which might be controversial, I would like to call bullshit on the entire claim of the Berkeley study in particular (and not about Simpson's Paradox in general). In the "Berkeley data" (if that's what it is), it's clear again that men applied to most departments in larger numbers than women. The Berkeley data claims that because more women were admitted on a per-department basis, more departments were biased against men. Now, picture this. Alice and Bob share a pizza. Alice takes 7 pieces and Bob takes 3 (he's on an intermittent fasting diet so he only eats every other slice). Alice eats 4 of her slices, Bob eats 3 of his. At the end, Alice turns to Bob and says "boy, you're such a glutton! You scoffed down all of your slices, but I still have 3 left". Is that a fair comparison? Well, no. Alice starts out with almost double the slices than Bob. Bob eats less than Alice, but he's accused of stuffing his face because he eats a larger proportion of his smaller share. Same with the Berkeley data. If that is the Berkeley data. |
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I can comfortably invent stories that are not inconsistent with the data for a wide range of scenarios:
1) Only the most capable women are applying to Dept A due to discrimination, so the data is evidence of discrimination.
2) Dept A is discriminating towards women (self evident, 80% vs 60% admissions).
3) Dept A is completely non-discriminatory and the assessors are unaware of the gender of applicants; the differences are due to personal choices w.r.t. education and social networks turning out to be proxies for gender.
No study this sort of data can detect gender bias. It can be used as evidence in a broader study that comes up with a causal model for how the admissions process works; but there is no getting around interviews and field observations.