Yes, because what he writes is very relevant. Und seems to be backed up by a lot of research, including his own on Stereotype Accuracy.
And also includes research that shows "brilliant" women don't choose STEM because they are, on average, more capable than the men who go into STEM.
> David P Schmitt
> should we be able to openly discuss and be informed by some of the real psychological sex differences that might account for variation in men’s and women’s workplace performance?
> Geoffrey Miller, who seems to fundamentally miss the point:
How so?
The fact that "we must have diversity because there are (useful) differences" is irreconcilable with "there are no differences" should be trivial and uncontroversial.
> Debra W Soh, who I am having a bit of trouble understanding:
What's difficult to understand?
If you tried to argue for purely social influence, you'd be laughed at.
> "inherently supportive of sexism or stratifying opportunities based on sex" is quite large,
Who, where?
> Thanks for the link
You're welcome.
There were actually two links, the other is to Jordan Peterson's interview, where he says that James "got the science correct" and who also provides tons and tons of links to relevant research, for anyone who actually wants to inform themselves.
I have to admit I found the nuanced views expressed by multiple people a lot more convincing than the largely uninformed rant (at least wrt. to the contents of the memo) in the Quora post. YMMV
There, we find
* Lee Jussim, whose blog posts on similar issues have been quoted about as many times as Suzanne Sadedin's Quora answer.
* David P Schmitt, who writes,
"But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace. And even if sex differences in negative emotionality were relevant to occupational performance..., the size of these negative emotion sex differences is not very large (typically, ranging between “small” to “moderate” in statistical effect size terminology; accounting for less than 10% of the variance). So, using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality would be like operating with an axe. Not precise enough to do much good, probably will cause a lot of harm. Moreover, men are more emotional than women in certain ways, too. Sex differences in emotion depend on the type of emotion, how it is measured, where it is expressed, when it is expressed, and lots of other contextual factors.
"As to sex differences in mate preferences and status-seeking, these topics also have been heavily researched across cultures.... Again, though, most of these sex differences are moderate in size and in my view are unlikely to be all that relevant to the Google workplace.... Sex differences in occupational interests, personal values, and certain cognitive abilities are a bit larger in size..., but most psychological sex differences are only small to moderate in size, and rather than grouping men and women into dichotomous groups, I think sex and sex differences are best thought of scientifically as multidimensional dials, anyway....
"Now, treating people as dichotomous sexes is exactly what many affirmative action policies do. As this is not my area of expertise, I can only offer my non-expert opinion on this issue, which is this: There have been (and likely will continue to be) many socio-structural barriers to women working in technological jobs. These include culturally-embedded gender stereotypes, biased socialization practices, in some cultures explicit employment discrimination, and a certain degree of masculinization of technological workplaces. Within this sea of gender bias, should Google use various practices...to especially encourage capable women of joining (and enjoying) the Google workplace? I vote yes. At the same time, should we be able to openly discuss and be informed by some of the real psychological sex differences that might account for variation in men’s and women’s workplace performance? In the right context, I vote yes to that, too."
* Geoffrey Miller, who seems to fundamentally miss the point:
"So, psychological interchangeability makes diversity meaningless. But psychological differences make equal outcomes impossible. Equality or diversity. You can’t have both.
"Weirdly, the same people who advocate for equality of outcome in every aspect of corporate life, also tend to advocate for diversity in every aspect of corporate life. They don’t even see the fundamentally irreconcilable assumptions behind this ‘equality and diversity’ dogma."
(I'll just point out that Google has essentially interviewed its way through the entire cadre of computer science graduates from the last couple of decades. The idea that it may want to increase the size of its candidate pool makes a certain amount of business sense on its own.)
* Debra W Soh, who I am having a bit of trouble understanding:
"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."
(The group of individuals who have chosen to interpret sex differences as "inherently supportive of sexism or stratifying opportunities based on sex" is quite large, really.)
Thanks for the link!