google employee's internal diversity memo goes viral

Zethor said:
” 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. "

He is literally saying biological differences lead to different abilities(and preferences) in the tech field and leadership in general.

Do you agree with that?
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Yes I do. What's the big deal?

You think biology doesn't play any part at all in ability, or preference?
 
VincentHanna said:
Not in the technology field, which is all about brain power.
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What about the desire to be a manager, leader, take up a role that has more stress, etc...

You think males and females take to these types of roles just the same?

In my industry there are successful women, but there are also a lot of women who are happy with the 9-5 data entry jobs that openly admit that promotion, etc. does not interest them.

Have to admit I haven't come across many if any men that are happy just plodding along, whether or not their ability gets them the promotions they crave is another matter...

What is this down to?
 
Zethor said:
” 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. "

He is literally saying biological differences lead to different abilities(and preferences) in the tech field and leadership in general.

Do you agree with that?
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That's (a) not what he's saying and (b) very different to what you previously claimed he said.

So what are you asking what I agree with? What he actually said, what you first claimed he said or what you've just claimed he said?

There's no doubt that biological differences lead to different abilities in everything. For example, I couldn't be a physicist on a par with Stephen Hawking regardless of what educational opportunities I had.

How gendered the relevant differences are and how much that genderisation is innate is a different question entirely. I don't know and I think it's not possible to know. But I definitely think that it should be permissable to talk about it and I definitely think it should be unacceptable to discriminate against people based solely on sex and "race", so I agree with him on that. Unlike Google, which thinks it's a good thing to discriminate against people based solely on sex and "race".
 
VincentHanna said:
Not in the technology field, which is all about brain power.
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So would you be happy to accept that at the top end, males with West African ancestry are likely to better sprinters?

I'm going assume you'd not accept that perhaps the reason for so many fields medal winners in mathematics being male is in part related to biology?

Is male dominance in things like chess, the IMO etc.. completely explained by social preferences? Can you really ignore evidence suggesting things like a larger variance in male IQs and just pretend that we're all the same because that is the politically correct view to have?
 
Tunney said:
I don't see anyone claiming that. Diversity is more than just gender but that's unfortunately what the manifesto writer focussed on.
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I see you claiming that. It's a prerequisite for believing that diversity is about biological characteristics and that those biological characteristics define a person's life experiences, which is what you're arguing. Group identity, i.e. "they're all the same".
 
Tunney said:
They can but does that scale to 650 or 72,000 people? Take OCuk for example: In threads like this, there's a range of opinions despite OCuk's membership being predominately male, white, relatively well-off, of working age and heterosexual.

However, as a whole, OCuk's views are not representative of the UK. It's more conservative and there's greater support for minor political parties.

If MPs were selected from members of OCuk exclusively, parliament would do a poor job of preprenting the general population. We'd probably struggle as a global business too. :)

In theory, I agree. In practice, I don't.
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Why do you think Google needs to be representative of the general populace though? It became one of the richest and most powerful tech companies in world, despite not apparently being all that diverse. Why does it need diversity now? Are Google losing space to companies who are more diverse?

There seems to be this false assumption that more diversity means better business. Where is the long-term scientific evidence from the commercial sector for this?
 
so it turns out the employee who was fired has a PhD in Systems Biology from Harvard...

here are four scientists responding to the memo:

https://web.archive.org/web/2017080...17/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/

For what it’s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo’s empirical claims are scientifically accurate. Moreover, they are stated quite carefully and dispassionately. Its key claims about sex differences are especially well-supported by large volumes of research across species, cultures, and history. I know a little about sex differences research. On the topic of evolution and human sexuality, I’ve taught for 28 years, written 4 books and over 100 academic publications, given 190 talks, reviewed papers for over 50 journals, and mentored 11 Ph.D. students. Whoever the memo’s author is, he has obviously read a fair amount about these topics. Graded fairly, his memo would get at least an A- in any masters’ level psychology course. It is consistent with the scientific state of the art on sex differences.
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As a woman who’s worked in academia and within STEM, I didn’t find the memo offensive or sexist in the least. I found it to be a well thought out document, asking for greater tolerance for differences in opinion, and treating people as individuals instead of based on group membership.

Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at.
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By the way, this is how Google markets Android:

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Google clearly believes that diversity is important to the company's commercial success.
 
Steampunk said:
Google clearly believes the appearance of diversity is important to the company's commercial success.
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Exactly it seems to be the standard method of corporate deflection these days. Paint yourselves as the Mother Theresa of gay people, women & whales. Then use it to deflect when you monitor our emails or pass on our information to the NSA or don't pay tax.
 
Yeah it's incredibly difficult to advertise something against your actual practices isn't it. It's almost mandatory now to portray how excellent your company is at diversity.
 
Angilion said:
That is obviously wrong.

If they were employing based on hand size (and hand size was relevant to the job, which it might well be for that particular job) then they would be employing on hand size, not on sex. It's simply not true that all women have smaller hands than all men.

A fair approach would be to devise a manual dexterity test relevant to the job and require applicants to pass that test. As always, judge by what is relevant and judge each person individually rather than judging averages for lots of people. Should everyone have to wear clothes to fit a person of the average size for their sex? If not, why not?
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Well I'm fine to leave a massive global company to their recruitment policy and you to your left wing ideology.
 
StriderX said:
Left wing bigots don't like experts either it would appear.
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If it doesn't fit the dogma then it has to go in the bin. I'm afraid the political Left has been hijacked by high minded, ultra liberal graduates that gravitate in their own circles and bleat into their echo chambers. They have become completely detached from reality.

I think a few people really need to hear the story of The Emperor's New Clothes.
 
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