Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo
by exomancer on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @06:03AM
(#14956172)
I think you are also misjudging the effects, and to talk about ability is harmful to the very debate. There are some differences in ability, but they seem to even themselves out (men are better at mental rotation, women have better visual memory, etc.), the total effect on general intelligence appears to be none.
However, there are measurable psychological differences when it comes to preference of the role you want to take, how much risk you are willing to take, and what your priorities regarding status and family are, and we do have evidence that some of it is, at least partially, biological.
For example, for verbal abilities the female bell curve is a little to the right of the male bell curve. For spatial abilities, it is the other way around. Does this mean men cannot be excellent writers, and women cannot be excellent mechanical engineers?
No.
It just means that if all else were equal, we would expect writing and mechanical engineering to have gender distributions that don't match the general population.