[hammerzeit]

Math is a good analogy, because I think it illustrates the real question here -- to what degree should we care about the pipeline into the meritocracy?

Is a meritocracy effective if it's selecting the most deserving candidates from a skewed pool? Can we call it a meritocracy? Is it fair, for that matter, to evaluate a meritocracy by expecting an even distribution among attributes like gender or ethnicity?