[bellerocky]

> I think the best candidate should always be chosen, as that's fair.

I'm not saying that companies shouldn't hire the "best" candidate, where "best" has some vague, unclear and subjective definition. But whatever best may mean, I doubt it is "fair" unless inherited wealth and traits also fits into your definition of "fair". Question of "fair" totally sidesteps the bigger problems. I think what this post states is that not having a monoculture may have a greater benefit than hiring a subjectively "best" engineer.

As an anecdote as an example of larger issues of fair being a weird thing to think about, I have an example. I have a 6 year old daughter in chess class. All last semester she's been too shy to raise her hand to answer chess questions from the male chess teacher. He's a great teacher, great with kids but I noticed he predominately encourages the boys to answer his questions, and sure enough when I finally convinced my daughter to raise her hand on the last day of class he totally never picked her.

She was raising her hand for almost every question and this teacher sometimes even ignores the hands up and asks the same boy he's been asking all day, even though that kid didn't have his hands up, and even though this kid sometimes yells out answers without raising his hands even when the teacher says not to do this. My daughter was so dejected by this experience, of raising her hand, finally being ready to answer a chess class and this guy totally doesn't even see her. She was crushed, and I was too. We're still going to go to this chess class, but if this teacher doesn't change I'm going to talk to him. This is an example of why "best" and "fair" are hard. A few generation of teacher tracking encouraging boys over girls makes me sceptical that the produced "best" was fair in the first place.

[doctorfoo]

I felt exactly the same as your daughter as a kid, and I'm a guy. The cause was the shyness, not gender.

>even though this kid sometimes yells out answers without raising his hands even when the teacher says not to do this

Seems like the problem there is extroversion vs introversion. Less sensitive vs sensitive. Something I can totally relate to.

[bellerocky]

Well I've suggested to my daughter to start yelling out answers too even though it's not allowed to start getting attention if she doesn't get picked and if she gets in trouble she should say she never gets picked.

[nawitus]

If you factor out all 'external factors', then everyone is equal and all hires should be random. I wouldn't personally go to a randomly chosen doctor, though.

[pervycreeper]

A child doesn't get picked once, and that's evidence of institutionalized bias?

[bellerocky]

As I said, it's simply an anecdote of teacher tracking, and you've mischaracterized what I've said. I've noticed all semester long he's been ignoring girls trying to participate, and on the last day my daughter raised her hand the entire class, not just once. Still, as I said, it's an anecdote, not statistically significant, but if you want statistical evidence, teacher tracking is a real and widely known problem with lots of studies and policy discussions.

[oddevan]

A child doesn't get picked for an entire class and loses out to a student that doesn't have his hand raised. Sounds like bias to me.

[sp332]

What bellerocky described is institutionalized bias. It only takes one incident like that to discourage someone.

[pervycreeper]

>What bellerocky described is institutionalized bias.

No, it's confirmation bias, not to mention sampling, and entitlement complexes.

[sp332]

Entitlement, sure. But the boy's entitlement was confirmed while the girl's wasn't.

[pervycreeper]

The parent's entitlement.

[bellerocky]

I thought about this, and because I worried of coming across as an entitled parent I didn't say anything to the teacher. If I keep seeing it, whether it is my child or any of the other girls I will say something though.