In what way is the Damore memo not scientific? It cites academic research, presents evidence, I think the claims it makes are actually the mainstream ones.

I realize asking you to debunk the whole memo may be a bit much, so can you just point to the single most consequential unscientific part of it?

I read the memo and was horrified by how badly people treated him because of it. To me it seems like a rational and well evidenced document.

Citing research is fine. If his memo had been a list of papers with no commentary it would have just been weird and blown over.

The problem is when you synthesize ideas from research without expertise. The problem wasn’t his citations. It was the conclusions he drew from the citations and the policy proposals that he made in his document.

“It has citations” is not a valid reason to consider something well argued and scientific. Even flat earthers include citations.

Damore was explicitly asked for his feedback on a subject. He provided it supported by academic research and was fired for it. If Damore had provided an unconnected list of papers that would have been ignored, yes, because nobody would have known what he meant. Instead, he put together a document that connected different research findings with his own suggestions.

A recurring pattern in this debate is that people criticize Damore for a lack of expertise. Which is odd given that Damore, a Harvard Masters Degree holder in Systems Biology, is clearly conversant with the research and the context he is giving advice in. Furthermore, I have yet to see anyone point out a substantive specific error that Damore made, its just general things like "he lacks expertise."

Tell me, what is the most obvious or least controversial example of Damore's lack of expertise in terms of his argument?

> A recurring pattern in this debate is that people criticize Damore for a lack of expertise. Which is odd given that Damore, a Harvard Masters Degree holder in Systems Biology, is clearly conversant with the research and the context he is giving advice in.

Oh boy. I've got a PhD in CS from one of the best programs in the world. I'm wildly unqualified to synthesize research in another field and would surely make terrible errors if I tried to connect the dots between citations, especially if I started with my connections and went looking for associated citations. Having a familiarity with research is absolutely not evidence that his conclusions will be strongly considered.

This discussion has been had a thousand times. People he cited have responded to his writing. There can be no productive discussion about "were his conclusions correct or not" at this point.

Do you genuinely believe that you are unqualified to read research papers and come up with an opinion about them with sufficient rigor to merit responding to a request for a feedback from a training program you attended at work?

Yes absolutely. I'm barely even qualified to synthesize conclusions from CS papers outside of my subfield. Drawing broader conclusions from a slice of the literature requires immense context.

If you aren't able to read research papers and synthesize an opinion on them then by your own standards it seems you shouldn't have an opinion here. You can't tell whether Damore was right or wrong because you can't read papers from different fields and reach conclusions.

You think the authors Damore cited rejected him. Perhaps you have an example of that. I haven't seen anything beyond the authors agreeing with Damore's interpretation of the facts and saying they don't know about the conclusions. It's obviously not very compelling given that Damore was metaphorically tarred on feathered on social media and fired, so researchers saying they "don't know" about the conclusions might be because they genuinely don't know or might be because they don't want to invite backlash of their own.

> If you aren't able to read research papers and synthesize an opinion on them then by your own standards it seems you shouldn't have an opinion here. You can't tell whether Damore was right or wrong because you can't read papers from different fields and reach conclusions.

I cannot personally derive a conclusion about Damore from the literature. What I can do is ask world experts about their thoughts. In general, this is an effective way of developing reasonable opinions about the state of research. I'm friends with a few social psych faculty who study workplaces and let's just say that they don't hold Damore in high regard.

I'm super uninterested in having an argument about the merits of his essay since that discussion has been had thousands of times and no progress can be made. But "well he has a master's degree from harvard" is among the least compelling arguments in his favor.

Sure, his master's degree isn't the most compelling argument. It's somewhat more compelling an argument than "My unnamed expert friends don't hold Damore in high regard".

If world experts have weighed in on Damore, link to their opinions. I'm happy to discuss those.

Like I said, I'm uninterested in trying to convince other people about Damore. It isn't productive at this point. This is just how I personally came to my conclusions.

> The problem wasn’t his citations. It was the conclusions he drew from the citations and the policy proposals that he made in his document.

Right, so you personally disagree with his conclusions, thus it must be "problematic".

Unless you're going to elaborate as to what specifically you find problematic, there's not really much to discuss here and this is a pretty useless discussion.

For example, claiming that “women have higher rates of neuroticism” is debatable.

IMO, that kind of discussion is frankly uninteresting and unhelpful.

No, it really isn't debatable. That's the widespread consensus view. Personality traits are judged based on responses to surveys. When you ask large groups of people the same surveys and evaluate them the same way you consistently find women score higher on neuroticism than men. This is a widely repeated finding that is consistent across generations.

A paper on neuroticism in older women compared to older men - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2031866/

"testing gender differences at the level of latent traits revealed higher levels of Neuroticism (d = .52) and Agreeableness (d = .35) in older women than older men. The consistency of these findings with prior work in younger samples attests to the stability of gender differentiation on Neuroticism and Agreeableness across the lifespan."

A paper trying to asses the genetic component to personality traits - http://midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/1779.pdf

"Research has found observed phenotypic sex differences in the BFM. Women, for instance, tend to have higher mean levels of Agreeableness and Neuroticism than men (Chapman, Duberstein, Sörensen, & Lyness, 2007; Costa, Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001; Feingold, 1994)."

A paper looking at personality trait differences across the world and in other cultures - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijop.12265

"In terms of the personality traits known as the Big Five, men tend to score lower than women in neuroticism and agreeableness"

A paper looking at gender differences in neuroticism and extraversion across 30 different countries - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/14018323_Gender_Dif...

"Women obtained higher means than men on neuroticism in all countries, and men obtained higher means than women on psychoticism in 34 countries and on extraversion in 30 countries."

A paper on neuroticism differences in men and women among college students - http://mpsi.umm.ac.id/files/file/723%20-%20728%20Djudiyah%20...

"Table 1 showed that there was significant difference of neuroticism level between males and females (t-test = 2.138, df =49, P<0.05). Males tended to have lower neuroticism personality level (Mean=111,833) than females (Mean=127.303). Thus the hypothesis that males have less neuroticism level than females was accepted."

I could go on for a long time just finding different studies on this topic and quoting their results, but there is no need to. That women have higher rates of neuroticism is likely the least debatable and most scientific thing Damore asserted. Can you find a single study or paper where it was concluded that women had anything but higher levels of neuroticism?

I trust that you will either have one or more such references, or you will admit that this claim is scientific and not really debatable. If you admit that, I would expect some revision of your general opinion given that this is an example of one of what you believed to be one of the more significant things Damore got wrong.

Genuine question: What actually is neuroticism? I'm broadly familiar with the term in a colloquial sense, but not a scientific sense. Wikipedia says:

>Neuroticism is one of the Big Five higher-order personality traits in the study of psychology. Individuals who score high on neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness.[1] People who are neurotic respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult. They are often self-conscious and shy, and they may have trouble controlling urges and delaying gratification.

Is there truly a common thread between these various emotions that ties them all together as neuroticism, or is neuroticism an arbitrarily chosen set of emotions? It's far from clear to me that these listed emotions have much to do with each other in the general case. If I'm feeling fear or worry because the sidewalk I'm walking on is covered in ice, that's not related in any way to anger or envy. Does it only count when these emotions are irrational? What then does it mean for these emotions to be irrational? If I am alone and feel lonely, is that irrational? Is loneliness only indicative of neuroticism when you're actually surrounded by your friends? Maybe you'd feel lonely in such a situation because none of your friends can related to you about something you've been worrying about. Is there any truly objective measure of the rationality of an emotion? I don't think so.

Wikipedia goes on to say that there's a lot of disagreement over what this term means:

> Neuroticism is a trait in many models within personality theory, but there is a lot of disagreement on its definition. Some define it as a tendency for quick arousal when stimulated and slow relaxation from arousal, especially in concern to negative emotional arousal; others define it as emotional instability and negativity or maladjustment, in contrast to emotional stability and positivity, or good adjustment. Others yet define it as lack of self-control, poor ability to manage psychological stress, and a tendency to complain.[6]

It says that 'personality theory' is a scientific study, but I'm a bit skeptical of that.

> Is there truly a common thread between these various emotions that ties them all together as neuroticism, or is neuroticism an arbitrarily chosen set of emotions?

Yes. It's something that shows up in one specific factor analysis as one of five dimensions (i.e. parameters) that effectively summarize your answers to a bunch of questions about personality. Different analyses/models come up with different parameterizations, e.g. the HEXACO model has six parameters, with the Emotionality factor picking up the bulk of "Neuroticism" from the Big 5, but some ending up under Honesty-Humility (reversed) or even under Agreeableness (reversed)!

Am I correct in thinking that the rationality or lack-thereof of the emotions is considered a factor? And if so, how can that be evaluated through questionnaires asking people about themselves?

Suppose for example a woman lives in an environment that's dangerous for her but not so for men. On the questionnaire, she reports that she often feels afraid. Is that answer considered evidence of neuroticism? It seems to me that it shouldn't be, but you'd need to examine the individual circumstances on a case-by-case basis to tease out the difference between rational fear and neurotic fear. From a logistics standpoint I don't see how that analysis could be done at scale, hence my skepticism that any of this is actually scientific.

Thanks for the links, however I think the misrepresentation of information here is women have higher rates of neuroticism, but is that true within sample present at Google? Not every possible women is more neurotic than every possible man.

Additionally, dealing with discrimination can lead to self-esteem issues, which are tied to neuroticism.

If Damore suspected that women at Google were, on average, shorter than men at Google would you doubt that too, because there is no study on gender differences in height among Google employees?

When thinking about this you should ask what your priors are. If neuroticism is widely, across ages and cultures, found to be higher in women and men, and it is, then wouldn't your prior, without a Google specific personality survey, be that Google women likely have higher neuroticism than men?

To me it seems like an impossibly high standard to expect Damore to do a personality survey of Google to figure out if this oft repeated neuroticism result also holds true for Google employees.

Depends what the implications of that statement were. I think assuming that women at Google have higher levels of neuroticism is fair, but once you start to posit that as an actionable truth is when real information is needed.

Please note the shifting goal posts. At the start of this comment thread you were saying that Damore's memo was certainly unscientific, and now you are arguing that there needs to be a higher bar for action than the fair assumptions that Damore made.

Keep in mind that Damore is a single person giving feedback to a diversity course. He doesn't have the resources, time, or mandate to survey Google's employees to test whether or not this general trend holds. Perhaps, before acting on Damore's recommendations it would be a good idea to do some tests on Google's employees to see if general trends hold true in their specific subset - but that is a really different claim than the initial claim that Damore was unscientific.

If Damore had written that smoking causes lung problems and therefore Google should start taking some actions to stop employees from smoking, it might be merited to do further tests to see if the link between smoking and lung problems holds true for Google employees as it does for people in general. It would not be merited to call Damore unscientific because he had not yet done that research prior to making his suggestion.

It seems like he was cherry-picking studies that fit a personal theory he held before the feedback was ever requested. I would consider that to be unscientific.

If he was cherry-picking studies then for each study he cited there would be multiple conflicting studies. Do you have examples of those?

The fact is that the same study says that men express more psychoticism than women. Do you think he would have been equally railed against if he brought that up in his paper?

Women on average are more socially aware and exhibit higher emotional intelligence than women. There is scientific research to suggest this, and for me anecdotally it also rings true (as a man, but again key word = on average).

Do you find this statement offensive? Should I not say this because it might hurt men's feelings?

Or is it only wrong to say something negative about a race/gender if it implies something negative about certain underrepresented genders and races?

I’m not concerned about being offended or what one should or shouldn’t say. But in general saying I don’t find saying those kinds of sweeping statements to be very constructive, including the positive example.

I'm guessing if you read the memo you only read a version with sources and data omitted. The original version was very much science-based, even if you disagree with the science or think it incomplete/biased.

Citing papers doesn’t make an opinion piece “scientific” or unpolitical. It just means the author did enough research to prop their opinion up. It’s a particular failing of self described rationalists that seeing citations means the goal was objective truth rather than supporting a pre-existing bias or opinion. Particularly when dealing with papers in harder to study fields that have been at the centre of the replication crisis.

As with the SRE who tried to play epidemiologist the other day it pays to be skeptical about the evidence and opinions presented even if they are delivered with citations and in an academic tone. Especially when both are playing far outside their fields of expertise.

I don't care what his pre-existing biases were, and that's not really the point. He wrote a paper and supported it with facts and sources. If you disagree with something, then dispute the facts/sources.

I haven't seen a single comment in this post disagreeing with the memo that actually critiques any specific points in the memo. Every single criticism I've seen is more along the lines of "but he was being sexist". Ok, can't argue with that I guess.

If you don’t care about the context the memo was written in you are just engaging in what I described. Essentially trying to veneer your preconceptions with the appearance of “science” and attempting to shift the burden of proof.

It's absurd but, by and large, people don't actually care about science, let alone understand it. They may occasionally appreciate the rewards of science, but only when it makes them happy. When it sends a negative signal, people are quick to ignore science, or only pay attention to tidbits of science that reinforces their world view. It's not even a question of intelligence. Smart people all the time, including on this very site, fall prey to both anti-science and "scientism" at about the same rate. The only difference between a smart human and a dumb human in this space is the smart human has a bigger vocabulary and knows how to cherry-pick data.

Damore might have been granted some more understanding if he had presented his memo to some scientists. Even then, there would have been a high probability that he would have been told to hush-hush or be asked to leave.

> Damore might have been granted some more understanding if he had presented his memo to some scientists. Even then, there would have been a high probability that he would have been told to hush-hush or be asked to leave.

FYI, here are responses to Damore's memo from a few different scientists with relevant expertise: https://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists...

That's a dismissive viewpoint. To be consistent with your view, nobody should be commenting in this thread.

Moreover, a person's field of expertise doesn't have any bearing on whether their ideas are correct. It may go to explain why their views are the way they are, but it doesn't necessarily follow that a person is wrong about something scientific because they aren't a scientist, for instance.

>Moreover, a person's field of expertise doesn't have any bearing on whether their ideas are correct

Nor does their expertise preclude them from succumbing to personal or institutional biases.

Nor does it resign them to said biases.

You should really read a little more history. There's a long, long tradition of "patently obvious" "science" that just happens to justify the continued dominance of whatever group is top at the moment. As I mentioned elsewhere, Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning" is an excellent examination of the racial aspect of that.

I have my own opinions, which happen to be different from yours!

Except people are by default being told their opinions are incorrect because they disagree with the so called experts.

Experts in a soft, non experimental, survey based scientific discipline. Soft sciences are institutional dogma because by and large there is no way to experimentally verify anything. This is a particular debate in which the establishment is clearly in the wrong to anyone who isn't determined to believe in a nonexistent equality.

> Damore doesn’t strike me as an expert in the field. Just a typical engineer who thinks he knows everything.

FWIW, Damore has a masters in systems biology. This fact was fairly widely reported. So, you can fall back on the facts instead of your own biases (what "strikes" you).

I'm not sure how that makes him any more qualified on the topic of diversity issues at Google

I just told you why it isn't political, you literally just ignored my comment. The whole point of the memo is to attempt to explain a phenomenon that exists, thus it is not political. You can disagree with the contents of the memo, but that doesn't make it "political", or an expression of "opinions".

I just told you why I disagree