> I hope we never become colleagues.

This crosses into personal attack, which is not allowed here. Please don't do that again.

I don't think you read your own link well enough:

> "Sex researchers recognize that these differences are not inherently supportive of sexism or stratifying opportunities based on sex. It is only because a group of individuals have chosen to interpret them that way, and to subsequently deny the science around them, that we have to have this conversation at a public level." -- Dr. Debra W Soh

The problem is the author is repeating a pattern common in these discussions, where some kernels of empirically supported science are used to justify opinions unsupported by them. That we can measure some differences in MRI in no way establishes that under-representation of women in tech is a result of biological inevitability. We know for certain this isn't the case due to history itself, as well as variation in representation by location and culture.

I think you've interpreted that quote exactly the opposite of the way it was intended. Here is slightly more context, which makes it clear that Soh is arguing it is the opponents of this memo who misinterpret any reference to sex differences and "subsequently deny the science around them."

> 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.

> Sex researchers recognize that these differences are not inherently supportive of sexism or stratifying opportunities based on sex. It is only because a group of individuals have chosen to interpret them that way, and to subsequently deny the science around them, that we have to have this conversation at a public level.

Did the employee support "stratifying opportunities based on sex"?

The author asserted that gender imbalance at google is the result of evolutionary/biological factors, and that diversity programs attempting to establish parity in representation are damaging to google and should be abandoned.

Look at this and explain to me how evolutionary psychology or biology explain what happened to women in CS in the US:

https://developers.hp.com/sites/default/files/Intl%20Womens%...

If the author's positions sound mild or plausible to you, I don't believe you've actually read the science on this issue. What the original author said simply isn't supported in the way they claim. That we can measure slight differences in aggregate between women and men in no way explains what's going on as a sole factor.

This measures percentage, not absolute numbers. The percentage dropped because loads of men joined tech when tech became lucrative. Before that it was a niche field.

Last I checked women like making money too. Likewise, while software becoming lucrative is a global trend, the intense drop in womens involvement is not at all the same globally.

And again, I'm pointing out that the author advanced biological and evolutionary psychology as mechanisms for explaining away this, despite them operating on time scales that make this impossible.

> Last I checked women like making money too.

Not as much as men. See a study [1] and Steven Pinker's slide [2], and many more studies. It's a well established scientific consensus.

> despite them operating on time scales that make this impossible.

The author isn't claiming that men evolved within 100 years, but simply that men have in thousands of years evolved to have skills more suitable for programming by a small margin. When considering the 99%tile, this small difference becomes quite big. According to [3], you find 4-10 times more men in the top 1% bracket than women in certain skills.

[1]: https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2011/SPP457/um/23632422/Hakim...

[2]: https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/images/pinker.slid...

[3]: https://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/56143/sex-...

I never said the author's positions were mild or plausible, or that biology explains what happened to women in CS in the US.

you raise an interesting point. I'd be curious to see workforce gender distributions outside of the US.

Do some research on the nordic gender paradox. It seems that (simplified) if you forcefully "level the playing field" that intrinsic biological differences are stronger, not weaker.

that's not "women in CS". that's women being awarded CS degrees. I've seen that chart before.

not to say that chart couldn't be related to what's going on now, but it's not helpful to simply point there and say "look science!".

It’s pretty easy to find at least one scientist who will deny global warming, or that smoking doesn’t cause cancer. That doesn’t make that scientist right any more than these (all male, all white) scientists.

The assertions of the author of the screed are not well-accepted, and they are not facts. They are conjecture, and the author attempted to make universals out of primarily American ways of thinking and ingrained ways of discrimination.

I agree, it's certainly possible to find scientists who will support one stance or another, but please do read the linked article in its entirety before spreading misinformation. One of the scientists is actually a woman (and non-white btw), Debra Soh, who holds a PhD in sexual neuroscience.

Did you actually read the article I linked?

Yes. I’ve also read other articles. The stance presented by the memo author does not represent “broad” scientific consensus, it represents a pseudo-scientific basis for continued discrimination. The same thing was tried back in the 1800s to explain why certain humans should be enslaved to others.

No, you did not read the article. You claim all scientists in the article were male scientists, while in fact one is female.

How interesting, I have read other articles too. I am unqualified to make any authoritative claims on this subject (and many others), but people who seem to be just that appear to disagree with you.

Most arguments against the manifesto (sic) I have seen, seem to be either ad hominem or claiming some form of "discrimination" .. as in prejudice. In the light of the current discussion around gender, mostly in the US, I am just not convinced. And it seems that many people who actually are qualified agree (no, a group of self referencing "gender studies" professors does not convince).

Anyway, it's coming up 5AM here and I will not bother you further with my slave-owner-descendant misconceptions.

Then please link to some of these articles. You are doing what you are complaining about: merely asserting.

But they are well-accepted, and they have been for decades. If scientific consensus is any measure of truth, you should be defending his propositions with the same fervor you would global warming. Anything else is just science denialism.

They are? That's news to me.

Several of the studies he cites on biological differences in genders are well accepted, so far as I know the field. But the key conclusions that he draws from those studies (and really, the entire point of the memo) don't have any direct scientific support that I know of. Perhaps I am missing some key references. Care to provide citations for some of these?

"Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things ... These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics."

There's a citation for the first part. What's the evidence for the conclusion drawn?

"Neuroticism ... This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs."

Citation for why neuroticism leads to fewer women in high stress jobs?

How about the entire "Non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap" section? That contains stuff like this:

"Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things"

"Women on average are more cooperative"

"Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average"

Each of these statements (which at least hit my radar of being scientifically supported from the literature I know) is followed by some suggestions on how to improve the workplace for women. Implicit, of course, is that these aggregate scientific differences are somehow responsible for the gender gaps in tech. Any citations for why the quoted statements explain anything at all about gender differences in tech, rather than say, other STEM fields (biology? medicine? they have very different gender gaps).

It would be great to have the references I'm missing, because without them it sure appears the author is citing well accepted studies in order to make it look like his unsupported conclusions have "evidence".

Fair point. I'm here to defend the factual basis for his conclusions, not the logic that got him there.

At the end of the day, he told a just-so story; in this, he's no different than the "blame discrimination" camp. At least this story is an empirical one backed by self-reported work place surveys, cross-cultural analyses, etc. The fundamentalists opposing him just have some anecdotes, some unreproducible stereotype threat studies, and a healthy dose of religious conviction.

The views in the article represent the scientific consensus.

Scott Alexander covers some of the most salient points here:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

See Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate for a book-length treatment.

(all male, all white) scientists

This is both ad hominem and wrong (the fourth scientist featured, Dr. Debra W. Soh, is an East Asian woman).