> As the most base example: the candidate pool for a company like Google is self-selecting. Taking research about women (which I'm accepting uncritically just for the sake of argument in this post) as a population (research which showed a very small, minor difference in certain narrow traits) and implying this tells us anything at all about the women who have applied, let alone been hired, by Google is completely unsupported by science. Women candidates, or engineers, are very far from random samples of the women population.

Damore said exactly this in the memo, your post only proves that you didn't really read or understand it.

> He misapplied science to make a point that's not supported by science

Perhaps other Google employees should have responded with "You appear to be making a flawed argument. Here's where we think your argument goes off the rails, and why."

Assuming Damore was arguing in good faith, such a response might have changed the minds of Damore or other like-minded employees.

But simply firing Damore was at best a missed opportunity, and at worst evidence that the majority view is simply a matter of opinion with no real justification.

Keep in mind that the majority of googlers according to a blind poll did not want him fired. Also the memo was circulated for a month internally. Damore didn't get fired until it was leaked to to media and they ran hit pieces that ranges from intellectually dishonest to outright dishonest. I put the blame for this fiasco on the highly slanted media coverage that put Google in a position where they had to fire Damore or get skewered for sexism.