Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by jasonwatkinspdx on Monday August 07, 2017 @11:46PM (#14953999)

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.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by backpropaganda on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @12:21AM (#14954244)

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.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by jasonwatkinspdx on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @12:25AM (#14954277)

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.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by backpropaganda on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @01:18AM (#14954628)

> 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-...

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by Buge on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @12:19AM (#14954232)

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

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by mr_spothawk on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @12:30AM (#14954316)

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

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by mvdwoord on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @07:19AM (#14956601)

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.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by mr_spothawk on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @12:28AM (#14954297)

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!".

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